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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29847321">Holmes Again</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/LizzeXX/pseuds/LizzeXX'>LizzeXX</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Jackie Holmes Chronicles [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sherlock (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Assassin Mary Morstan, Babies, Birth, Canon Rewrite, Criminal Minds Crossover, Drama, Episode: The Abominable Bride, Established Relationship, Eurus is mad, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Leena and Sherlock for the Win, Leena is French, Leena is an old friend, Leena is his heart, Lies, Love, Marriage, Mary Lives, Mary Rocks, Mycroft is meddlesome, Mystery, Past Relationship(s), Pregnancy, Profiling, Psychology, Psychopath Eurus, References to Depression, Rewrite of Series 4, Robin Hood References, Scotland Yard, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Sherlock Holmes Has a Heart, Sociopath Sherlock Holmes, Spiraling Thoughts, The East Wind - Freeform, The French are awesome, The truth about Redbeard, Truths, agra, minor crossover</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 23:02:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>154,370</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29847321</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/LizzeXX/pseuds/LizzeXX</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and Leena, newly married, are called back to London before their exile could even begin. With Moriarty seemingly back and taking up focus, will Sherlock miss the real danger lurking about? When tragedy strikes a beloved wife will it push him on or will the failure break him down? The East Wind comes for all eventually.</p><p>Sherlock/OC</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>John Watson &amp; Original Female Character(s), Locksley/Leena, Mary Morstan/John Watson, Mycroft Holmes &amp; Original Female Character(s), Sherlock Holmes &amp; Original Female Character(s), Sherlock Holmes/Jacqueline Jerrard, Sherlock Holmes/Original Female Character(s), Sherwood/Jackie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Jackie Holmes Chronicles [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2189583</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The Abominable Bride: One Old Mystery</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I have been plagiarized many times since I began writing fanfiction :( So please, do not copy my work onto other sites. And if you see my work, whether in full or tweaked or mish-mashed into other people's works, reach out to me on tumblr (LizzeXX) and let me know so I can look into it, post evidence on my tumblr's 'Plagiarizers' page, and ask for help reporting when it happens :(</p><p>I have seen it all by now. From people flat out copying everything and just pasting it as is, to changing the OC's name or from 3rd to 1st person, to alternating parts of their own work with putting in parts of mine, to starting off originally and then transitioning to my work, to using a specific OC for 1 story then switching to another from the same genre in their next, to people literally taking chunks from 5 different series and piecing it together into a story, so please, PLEASE, let me know if you see it happening. I am nervous enough posting this on AO3 or any other site, it is reassuring to me if people can keep an eye out and just let me know if you see anything happening :(</p>
    </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello! Hello! Hello! For new readers, this is an OC/Sherlock story, Holmes Again, a little play on Home Again, and it is the fourth story in my series, The Jackie Holmes Chronicles (I would recommend Holmes, Sweet Holmes and Holmes is Where the Heart is and Welcome Holmes be read first). My OC, Jacqueline 'Leena' Jerrard, called Jackie by everyone who isn't Sherlock, is a very old, very close friend of Sherlock Holmes and is now his wife :) She has her own nicknames for him, Sherwood, when around others, and Locksley, in private, based on her favorite story as a child, Robin Hood.</p><p>A short description, Leena is a woman of average height, with light blonde hair just down to her chest that hangs straight with a little wave to it, with gray eyes. She's usually rather pale and tends to wear comfortable and simple clothes. To help the visualization more, I picture her to look something like the actress Brianna Brown. This story is a very minor crossover with Criminal Minds in the sense that Leena was once a member of the BAU in America for about four years so slight references might be made to that show ;)</p><p>I am going to try to keep as true and in character to Sherlock as I can, though I give one caveat, you are a different person around your friends than around your family or co-workers or others. Leena is closer to him than anyone, they started a relationship in my first story, got engaged in the second, married in the third, so this series follows a very long and very established relationship/friendship between Sherlock and Leena long before the show begins that we only learn more of as time goes on.</p><p>This particular story will include the Christmas Special for Sherlock, the Abominable Bride, in 3 chapters. Most other chapters based on normal episodes will be only 2 chapters each ;)</p><p>Because of how the Christmas Special was structured, there will be a portion of this episode in italics, this will be anything happening in the real world/modern time, since a large portion of the episode took place in the 'past' and that will be the sequence I'm following more. Just to clear up something when the story eventually swaps between the past and present, in the past Sherlock is Holmes, John is Watson, and Leena is Jacqueline ;) In the present, they will follow the names usually used in the rest of the series, Sherlock, John, and Leena ;)</p><p>There will also be some French mixed into this chapter, with translations in the ending A/N ;)</p><p>~8~ is a scene break</p><p>'...' is a form of communication between Sherlock and Leena where he deduces her expressions and she profiles his, silently communicating without speaking.</p><p>Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock, not Sherlock Holmes or the BBC's show...or we might have gotten more of a certain missing Holmes ;)</p><p>Enjoy!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In the early 1880s, one John Watson walked alongside an old school friend, Mr. Stamford, through the halls of an underground mortuary, on the way to find a man who was also looking for someone to split rent on a flat in London. He had just come from the Second Afgan War, injured in battle, needing a cane to walk, and trying to piece his life together again, getting tired of living out of a hotel and trying to find a real place to live and heal.</p><p>…an underground mortuary should have been his first clue that said potential-flat-sharer was going to be something else.</p><p>Coming upon the man violently and viciously flogging a corpse with a walking stick was another sign.</p><p>"Good Lord!" Watson exclaimed at the brutal sight.</p><p>Stamford sighed, "It's an experiment, apparently. Beating corpses to establish how long after death bruising is still possible."</p><p>Watson could only watch on, growing increasingly uncomfortable, before he turned and began to limp after Stamford when he walked on, "Is there a medical point to that?"</p><p>"Not sure."</p><p>"Neither am I. So, where's this friend of yours, then?"</p><p>Stamford came to stop at the door to the room the man was within, causing Watson to turn and stare at him, realizing that the mad man within <em>was</em> the friend he had spoken of. But, well, if he was to find any sort of reasonable living in the city, beggars could not be choosers. So he, with some reluctance, followed Stamford into the room.</p><p>"Excuse me!" Stamford called out as they approached, but the man just kept on beating the corpse.</p><p>"I do hope we're not interrupting!" Watson tried his own hand at getting the man's attention, but he seemed far too inclined to continue the thrashing.</p><p>"Bonjour!" a voice said from behind them, causing both men to jump in startlement, having not seen the woman in the lovely deep purple gown sitting on a stool behind them, near the door, a small desk set up with a book open and an ink pen in hand, "Do you need zome 'elp getting hes attencion?" she stood, moving over to them, her French accent quite thick.</p><p>Watson gaped for all of a moment before the manners his mother raised him with came back to him. The woman was lovely, with blonde hair that had a faint hint of brown to it, neatly pinned back into a twist, with grey eyes that were quite mischievous. She was rather pale, though it could be the dim lighting and the deep color of her high collared gown that made it appear that way.</p><p>"Hello ma'am," he greeted, taking her offered hand to kiss the back of it, "If you could be so kind…"</p><p>"Jacqueline," she offered, "Please."</p><p>"John," Watson smiled.</p><p>"You must forgeeve Sherwood," she looked at the man, who had now snapped the walking stick in half over his knee and was beating the corpse with both halves, far more fondly than Watson would have thought given the circumstances, "He eez always very focused," she offered an apologetic smile, before turning to call out, "Oh Sherwood, attencion, s'il vous plait!"</p><p>The man gave the corpse one last whack, before he took a deep breath and turned, straightening his shirt as he did so, revealing an equally pale man, with striking blue eyes, and black hair neatly comped and slicked, wearing a black vest over his white shirt, a deep purple tie peeking out from below his neck.</p><p>"Yes?" he called out, his gaze immediately turned to Jacqueline, though it flickered to Watson when she gave a nod to the man beside her. He eyed Watson up and down, "You've been in Afghanistan, I perceive," and then turned to grab his waistcoat, peering at the pocket watch he kept there.</p><p>"Doctor Watson," Stamford began, "Mr. Sherlock Holmes, he…"</p><p>Before he could finish, Holmes had grabbed half of the stick and tossed it to Watson without even looking, the man quickly catching it.</p><p>"Excellent reflexes!" Holmes smiled at the man, putting the watch away, "You'll do."</p><p>Jacqueline rolled her eyes at him, shaking her head fondly, "Tu t'inquietes trop," she murmured, knowing he was only testing Watson because of the enemies HE made. If he was going to allow another into the home he had in mind for them, he wanted to make sure he would be able to protect HER if any of his enemies came calling while he was out.</p><p>"Jamais," he winked back at her.</p><p>"Je suis desole," Jacqueline turned to Watson, "Sherwood eez very protective. 'e will not let any near me who are not…" she struggled to find the word, "How you say…fighter."</p><p>"I'm sorry?" Watson shook his head, a little lost.</p><p>"I have my eye on a suite of rooms near Regent's Park," Holmes just continued speaking as though Watson hadn't asked, "Between us we could afford them."</p><p>"Rooms? Who said anything about rooms?"</p><p>"I did," Holmes answered this one at least, "I mentioned to Stamford this morning that Leena and I were in need of a fellow lodger. Now he appears after lunch in the company of a man of military aspect with a tan and recent injury, both suggestive of the campaign in Afghanistan, and an enforced departure from it. The conclusion seemed inescapable," his gaze flickered over to Jacqueline who was smiling at him with that fond look she only gave him when she was impressed with his observational abilities, "We'll finalize the details tomorrow evening."</p><p>"Sorry, sorry, who's Leena?" Watson frowned.</p><p>"Bonjour," Jacqueline gave him a small wave and a giggle, "Je suis Jacqueline Holmes."</p><p>"My wife," Holmes added, moving to put his waistcoat on as he approached, "We were looking for a third to rent out our spare bedroom too," he added, "Now if you'll excuse us, I have a hanging in Wandsworth and I'd hate them to start without me."</p><p>"A hanging?" Watson blinked as the two moved to a coat rack, Holmes picking up a long woman's coat to help Jacqueline into it.</p><p>"I take a professional interest. I also play the violin and smoke a pipe…"</p><p>"Sherwood," Jacqueline gave him a look.</p><p>"And attempt to <em>not</em> smoke a pipe," Holmes corrected without fumble, "I presume that's not a problem?"</p><p>"Er, no, well…" Watson stammered.</p><p>"And you're clearly acclimatized to never getting to the end of a sentence," Holmes remarked, taking a deerstalker hat that Jacqueline offered him, "Know any French?" he asked.</p><p>"Um, some?"</p><p>"We'll get along splendidly then," Holmes nodded, "Tomorrow evening, seven o'clock, then," he held out an elbow to Jacqueline to take, before he turned to go, pausing only to look over his shoulder and call out, "Oh, and the name is Sherlock Holmes and the address is two hundred and twenty-one B Baker Street."</p><p>They could both hear Stamford murmuring, "Yes, he's always been like that, though he's actually gotten better since he got married," on their way out.</p><p>Jacqueline merely giggled at the remark, squeezing Holmes's arm as they went, "Je vais mieux aussi, en t'ayant épousé."</p><p>~8~</p><p>Holmes grinned as he stepped out of the horse-drawn carriage, looking up at the door of 221B Baker Street, which hadn't changed at all in the 4 years he and Jacqueline had lived there, though the last year was the first without Watson renting their spare room. It was just as well, they had been giving thought to another purpose the room could serve, and with his investigative business taking off, due in large part to Watson's stories of their cases that he published in the Strand magazine, they could afford the rent without need of another renter. Not that they couldn't before, but Jacqueline had been adamant that he needed more friends than just her and that she needed someone around to keep him out of trouble when she couldn't join him on his cases.</p><p>His wife, bless her, possessed a sharp mind and keen eyes, and was often a large assistance to him in helping to discover the criminals behind the crimes he came across. He valued her opinion and endeavored to bring her with him on as many cases as he could. She had been studying in France for a number of years before they'd met Watson, working under a very well educated man who specialized in the study of the mind. It had taken some doing, given her gender and the lack of education allowed to women in their day and age. But his brother, for once in his life, had proven useful and pulled a number of strings to allow Jacqueline to learn from this man. They had been separated for near 4 years before she returned to London, to him. They corresponded regularly by mail, but it was not enough. Now that she was at his side once more, he did all he could to keep her there.</p><p>But there WERE some cases he deemed too dangerous and despicable to allow her to witness. His wife had a remarkable memory too, every word she read or picture she saw she could commit to memory easily. There were some things he would not wish her to see and be forced to recall in clear detail.</p><p>This had been one such case, dismemberment and all. And while the thrill of the game had been a distraction to their separation, he was very eager to see his wife once more.</p><p>Unfortunately, it was not his wife who opened the door, but his landlady, Mrs. Hudson, and her houseboy, Billy.</p><p>"Mr. Holmes," Mrs. Hudson sighed, "I do wish you'd let me know when you're planning to come home."</p><p>Holmes smirked, knowing it was her way of welcoming him back safe, for she had something of a soft spot for him, to make him and Watson a filling dinner to celebrate a successful case. Sadly, she failed to realize that he often did not send word for the express reason of surprising his wife upon his return, "I hardly knew myself, Mrs. Hudson. That's the trouble with dismembered country squires, they're notoriously difficult to schedule."</p><p>His eyes flickered behind her, peering for Jacqueline, before he turned to pay the cabbie, his pipe clamped between his teeth.</p><p>"What's in there?" Billy asked as he hurried over to help Watson remove their bags, looking pointedly at one in his hands.</p><p>"Never mind," Watson waved it off.</p><p>"Thank you," Holmes nodded to the cabbie, waving him off, before turning to head in after Billy.</p><p>"Did you catch a murderer, Mr. Holmes?" Billy called back to him.</p><p>"Caught the murderer," Holmes agreed, "Still looking for the legs. Think we'll call it a draw."</p><p>"You are losing your touch, I see," Jacqueline's voice echoed down to him as she descended the stairs, wearing her grey gown.</p><p>Which wasn't fair at all, Holmes thought, the grey gown always brought out her eyes and made them sparkle and how was he to concentrate on anything else when her eyes sparkled like that? He supposed that was what he got for wearing his purple tie before he and Watson had left.</p><p>"You were right," he remarked instead, heading to the stairs and reaching out to take her hands, pressing a kiss to the back of each of them, "It was the cook."</p><p>Jacqueline grimaced, "I had hoped not to be in zat regard."</p><p>Holmes smiled gently up at her, her accent had softened in the last four years, but it was still quite present and he had taken to speaking more French around her now that it was the two of them to allow the accent to continue. He rather loved her accent.</p><p>And, as much as he wanted to continue to hear it, it was getting rather difficult to do with Mrs. Hudson and Watson arguing about why the woman didn't seem to like his stories behind them. Jacqueline, though, pursed her lips to keep from smiling when Mrs. Hudson complained about how Watson had written that all she did was show people the stairs and make breakfast.</p><p>The Landlady would deny it, cite how she was their landlady not the housekeeper nor their maid…and yet she did, without fail, serve them breakfast each day.</p><p>"Well," Watson defended, "Within the narrative, that is, broadly speaking, your function."</p><p>Holmes gave Jacqueline a roll of the eye for how terrible that had sounded, which earned him a giggle from her and a kiss on the cheek. He never treated her like most men did their wives. He gave her far more freedom than the norm and the only restrictions he put on her were not out of a thought that she was incapable due to being a woman, but more a fear for her safety in being his wife whom he loved. She appreciated the trust and equality he offered her.</p><p>"My what?!" Mrs. Hudson cried, offended.</p><p>"Don't feel singled out, Mrs. Hudson," Holmes stepped up onto the step with Jacqueline, "I'm hardly in the dog one," and gave her a full kiss on the lips in greeting, before taking her hand to move up the stairs to their flat.</p><p>"The dog one?!" Watson sounded as indignant as Mrs. Hudson had.</p><p>"I'm your landlady, not a plot device!" Mrs. Hudson grumbled.</p><p>But Watson was far more concerned with how Holmes had described his story and followed him up the stairs, "Do you mean 'The Hound of the Baskervilles?'"</p><p>"And you make the room so drab and dingy," Mrs. Hudson wouldn't let up.</p><p>"Oh, blame it on the illustrator. He's out of control. I've had to grow this moustache just so people'll recognize me," he huffed, hurrying up the stairs after the pair.</p><p>Holmes, however, stopped in the doorway to the flat even as Jacqueline continued on into the room. It was bright, with the curtains pulled aside to allow what sunlight there was over London in, everything tidy and organized. He noticed many things, small though they were, that had changed since he had had to leave for this case. A new frame decorated 'Yorrick' as he had come to call the painting Jacqueline had gifted him, an optical illusion of a woman at a vanity that appeared as though a skull from another perspective, a reminder to always look at things in new ways. The stag's head he had mounted on the wall was dusted. And there were at least 4 new papers stabbed under the knife on the mantle, clearly they had gotten more mail in while they had been off and his wife had added it to his pile of ongoing cases. He also noticed a few papers on a desk off to the side, with the distinctive knife slit in them that told him his wife had taken a case or two to make notes of her own about.</p><p>However, the largest change…was the woman standing before the fireplace, dressed in the black mourning attire from head to toe, her face covered with a black veil.</p><p>Instantly he knew who it was.</p><p>Jacqueline would not allow a stranger into their home without him present, it was one of the few rules he insisted be followed, for he would take no chances with is wife's safety. It was someone she was familiar with and trusted…</p><p>And the perfume could be no one else for Jacqueline did not wear that particular brand, but had gifted it to a very specific woman a short while ago.</p><p>He glanced at Watson, who had come to stop just behind him and frown a the mysterious woman, his expression clearly reading that he had no idea who this was and was instantly on the defense, ready to protect his friends should this person attack.</p><p>It was unnecessary in this instance, but appreciated.</p><p>"Good Lord!" Watson murmured beside him.</p><p>Holmes caught sight of Jacqueline's small smile and grinned himself, deciding to see if Watson would be able to work this one out by himself, and so he entered the room, moving over to where Jacqueline had come to sit by her desk and resume jotting down notes, "Jacqueline, dear," he put his hands on her shoulders, "Is there any particular reason a woman is standing in our sitting room?"</p><p>He would give Watson that at least, that it <em>was</em> a woman and not a man in disguise.</p><p>"Eez it not obvious?" she looked up at him, "She eez a client, Sherwood."</p><p>"But I wasn't here."</p><p>"She said she would wait," Jacqueline shrugged and moved back to her notes.</p><p>Watson, ever the more polite of the two men, moved a chair to face the woman, "Would you, er, care to sit down?"</p><p>The woman just stood there, body aligned to clearly look at Watson, though it just made him more uncomfortable the longer the silence went on.</p><p>Holmes rolled his eyes, understanding quickly that Watson would <em>not</em>, in fact, be able to solve this on his own, and huffed, "Good afternoon," he greeted, turning to lean partly on Jacqueline's desk while she wrote on, "I'm Sherlock Holmes. It appears you have met my wife, Jacqueline, but this is my friend and colleague, Doctor Watson. You may speak freely in front of him, as he rarely understands a word."</p><p>"Holmes," Watson huffed.</p><p>Jacqueline hid a rather unladylike snort behind her hand, finally setting down her ink pen to turn in her chair demurely, watching the scene unfold.</p><p>"However, before you do, allow me to make some trifling observations," Holmes continued, looking her up and down, seeing if he could give Watson one more chance if he basically spelled it out for him, "You have an impish sense of humor which currently you're deploying to ease a degree of personal anguish. You have recently married a man of a seemingly kindly disposition who has now abandoned you for an unsavory companion of dubious morals. You have come to this agency as a last resort in the hope that reconciliation may still be possible."</p><p>"Good Lord, Holmes!" Watson cried oud, frowning deeply.</p><p>"All of this is, of course, perfectly evident from your perfume."</p><p>That part, however, startled Watson into confusion, "Her perfume?"</p><p>"Yes, her perfume, which brings insight to me and disaster to you."</p><p>"How so?"</p><p>"Because you did not recognize eet," Jacqueline remarked.</p><p>The woman before them reached up a pale hand and tugged on the side of her veil, lowering it to reveal the face of...</p><p>"Mary!" Watson gaped.</p><p>"John," Mary offered him a fond smile.</p><p>"Why, in God's name, are you pretending to be a client?"</p><p>"Because I could think of no other way to see my husband, Husband," Mary greeted, before casting a smile over to Jacqueline, "Merci beaucoup, Jacqueline."</p><p>Jacqueline merely waved a hand, "De rien."</p><p>~8~</p><p>Jacqueline rested partly sitting on the open window on the other end of the room, turned to face Holmes as he played on his violin the wedding song he had composed for the Watson wedding, now out of his coat and into a more comfortable tan colored dressing gown. He did love to play, but Jacqueline could tell he did so more in an effort to afford the Watsons some semblance of privacy while they had a small tiff by the fireplace. Though it wasn't quite enough as both could still very clearly hear the duo who weren't making an effort to be more quiet.</p><p>"It was an affair of international intrigue!" Watson seemed to be angrily defending himself.</p><p>Mary scoffed, "It was a murdered country squire."</p><p>"Nevertheless, matters were pressing."</p><p>"I don't mind you going, my darling," Mary sighed, "I mind you leaving me behind!"</p><p>"But what could you do?!"</p><p>"Oh, what do you do?" she huffed, "Except wander round, taking notes, looking surprised? Jacqueline is allowed on your excursions, why can't I?"</p><p>"Jacqueline is not <em>my</em> wife," was Watson's defense.</p><p>Holmes quickly stopped his playing, "Enough!" he snapped.</p><p>He had no qualms with allowing the Watsons to use his home to air out their grievances, but he drew the line at them dragging his own wife into their petty squabbles.</p><p>Jacqueline gave him an understanding look, rising from the window ledge and approaching, taking his beloved violin from him with a kiss to his fingers that had been digging into the strings too harshly the last few moments.</p><p>Holmes took a breath, feeling the irritation ease out of him at her gentle action, she truly was adept at getting into the minds of other people and understanding them in ways he could not. She knew where his mind had gone, and she was reassuring him with a single kiss that she did not fault him the times he left her behind, that she understood and trusted his decisions.</p><p>"The stage is set," he continued, more calmly, "And the curtain rises. We are ready to begin."</p><p>"Begin what?" Mary frowned.</p><p>"Sometimes, to solve a case, one must first solve another."</p><p>"Oh," Watson blinked, "You have a case, then, a new one?"</p><p>"An old one. Very old. I shall have to go deep."</p><p>"Deep? Into what?"</p><p>"Myself."</p><p>A door opened and the trio turned to see Jacqueline at the door to the flat, opening it with a smile on her face to reveal Inspector Lestrade loitering there, looking desperate to knock but hesitating to do so, "Gregory!" Jacqueline greeted, leaning in to offer the man a warm hug, "Please, come in, come in," she gestured him onward.</p><p>He was one of the few men who would, sometimes, ask her advice on cases that came across Scotland Yard when Holmes was unavailable, having seen first hand how she had skills of her own, unique to solving crimes, that the great Sherlock Holmes himself lacked. It was a skill that proved useful and clear now, for the first question out of her mouth once he head stepped inside was…</p><p>"Qu'est-ce qui ne va pas?" she looked at him, concerned.</p><p>Lestrade let out a huff that sounded dangerously like an almost tearful laugh, fumbling with the edge of his hat. He glanced off to the side, before turning to observe Holmes moving to sit in his armchair, the Watsons standing off to the side, "I…I'm sorry to just come up," he spoke instead of answering the question, "Mrs. Hudson didn't seem to be talking…"</p><p>Jacqueline stepped away from him and moved over to Holmes, absently reaching out and taking the pipe from him as he moved to fill it with tobacco, setting it on the mantle with a sly smile and a wink to Mary.</p><p>Holmes, to his credit, didn't react or reprimand her at all, merely kept speaking to Lestrade as though nothing had happened, "I fear she's branched into literary criticism by means of satire. It is a distressing trend in the modern landlady. What brings you here in your off-duty hours?"</p><p>"How'd you know I'm off-duty?" Lestrade asked, unable to help glancing off to the side once more.</p><p>Holmes rolled his eyes, "Well, since your arrival you've addressed over forty percent of your remarks to my decanter," he gestured to the side where a silver tray had been set up with a few bottles of alcohol, "Watson, give the Inspector what he so clearly wants."</p><p>Watson huffed but did as requested, moving across the room to pour a drink for the man who followed far too eagerly, "So, Lestrade, what can we do for you?"</p><p>"Oh, I'm not here on business. I just thought I'd…drop by."</p><p>"You are not one for social calls," Jacqueline remarked, now standing behind Holmes, her hands on his shoulders.</p><p>"Inspector, my time is far too precious to waste on idle chatter," Holmes remarked dryly, for it was true, every moment wasted on topics he cared nothing for were moments he could be spending engaging in stimulating conversation with his wife, "What strange happening compels you to my door but embarrasses you to relate?"</p><p>Lestrade swallowed hard and took a very long drink from the glass, taking a breath and shaking his head, trying to gather himself, "Who said anything happened?"</p><p>"You did, by every means short of actual speech."</p><p>"Ah, Holmes," Watson shook his head, eyeing Lestrade as he downed the rest of the alcohol, "You have misdiagnosed."</p><p>"Then correct me, Doctor," Holmes offered with a smile, already aware of that in how Jacqueline had gently squeezed his shoulder at his remark. But, as it was Christmas, he would allow his friend to assume he was right.</p><p>"He didn't <em>want</em> a drink," Watson took the glass from Lestrade and turned it over, not a drop left, "He <em>needed</em> one. He's not embarrassed; he's afraid."</p><p>"Very good, John!" Jacqueline praised.</p><p>"My Boswell is learning," Holmes agreed, reaching up to put a hand on Jacqueline's, looking up at her, "They do grow up so fast," before he turned back to Watson, "Watson, restore the courage of Scotland Yard. Inspector, do sit down."</p><p>Lestrade glanced at Watson as he went to get him another glass and moved to sit on a chair in the middle of the room, "I'm…I'm not afraid, exactly."</p><p>"Fear is wisdom in the face of danger."</p><p>"And bravery eez fazing zat danger in spite of zee fear wisdom creates," Jacqueline encouraged, which made Lestrade try to smile though it looked like more of a grimace.</p><p>"It is nothing to be ashamed of."</p><p>"Thank you," Lestrade spoke, both to them, and to Watson as he handed him the next glass.</p><p>"From the beginning, then."</p><p>Lestrade took a deep gulp of the liquid and followed it with a deep breath, before he began. "Mrs. Emelia Ricoletti," he started, "Well, she snapped. She dressed up in her wedding gown and stood on a balcony and opened fire on the passersby. She er," he looked down at his notes, "She used two pistols. Her face was…" he shuddered, "It was a mess, Mr. Holmes, people panicked and were running for cover but she just kept firing at any man she could. Kept calling out 'You!' while she did it. Then she…"</p><p>"A moment," Holmes interrupted, trying to imagine it clearly in his mind, "When was this?"</p><p>"Yesterday morning, her wedding anniversary."</p><p>"The bride's face. How was it described?"</p><p>"Er," he looked at his notes again, "White as death, mouth like a crimson wound."</p><p>"Poetry or truth?"</p><p>"Many would say they're the same thing."</p><p>"Yes, idiots. Poetry or truth?"</p><p>Lestrade shifted uncomfortably, "I saw her face myself. Afterwards."</p><p>"After what?" Holmes frowned at him.</p><p>"She, er, that is to say…when she seemed finished. She stopped shouting out 'You!' and asked 'Or me?' and then…" he made a gesture, unable to bring himself to say it, of turning a gun on himself and firing into his mouth. He winced apologetically at Jacqueline and Mary, though neither of them so much as flinched, "Blood everywhere, on the curtains draped behind her. Witnesses say she fell backwards into the room, where the body was recovered and taken to the morgue once authorities were called."</p><p>"Really, Lestrade," Holmes gave him an exasperated look, "A woman blows her own brains out in public and you need help identifying the guilty party. I fear Scotland Yard has reached a new low."</p><p>"I zink zere eez more to ze story, Sherwood," Jacqueline remarked, patting one of his shoulders.</p><p>Lestrade nodded, "That night, Limehouse, just a few hours later. Thomas Ricoletti, Emelia Ricoletti's husband, left his favorite opium den…"</p><p>"Presumably on his way to the morgue to identify her remains," Holmes assessed.</p><p>Lestrade took another drink for strength and nodded, "As it turned out, he was saved the trip. Because a cab approached him and a woman got out, dressed in a wedding gown, singing a song, her face hidden by the veil. But…well, it wasn't that way for long. She revealed herself to be Emelia Ricoletti, and she had a shotgun now. Horrified Mr. Ricoletti, understandably. One of our constables heard the commotion and confirmed it was her and Mr. Ricoletti identified her. And…well, then she shot him, twice."</p><p>"'Til death us do part," Holmes mused, "Twice, in this case."</p><p>"The constable said he saw a gaping wound on the back of her head when she walked away and left the scene. He was too much in shock to stop her, but quickly alerted more authorities for help."</p><p>"Extraordinary," Watson breathed.</p><p>"Impossible!" Mary exclaimed.</p><p>"Interesting," Jacqueline remarked.</p><p>Holmes, however, was grinning, "Superb! Suicide as street theater; murder by corpse. Lestrade, you're spoiling us. Watson, your hat and coat," he leapt to his feet and moved to the door, his hand having slid to Jacqueline's hand and tugged her along, a clear sign that he wished her to join them.</p><p>"Where are we going?" Watson moved to follow.</p><p>"To the morgue!" he hurriedly removed his dressing gown to change it for his jacket, "There's not a moment to lose…which one can so rarely say of a morgue."</p><p>"And am I just to sit here?" Mary demanded, hands on her hips.</p><p>"Not at all, my dear," Watson moved over to her, reaching out to tap her chin, "We'll be hungry later!"</p><p>"Jacqueline is going," Mary pointed out, glancing at the woman who looked back at her apologetic that she was allowed this while the other woman was not. But she was not angry with Jacqueline, she was more infuriated with her husband for forbidding her to join.</p><p>Watson gave her a pointed look, "She's not my wife," before he grinned and turned to Holmes, "Holmes, just one thing?" he glanced at Holmes' attire, "Tweeds, in a morgue?"</p><p>"Needs must when the devil drives, Watson," Holmes stated, turning to hurry down the stairs with Jacqueline, the man after him, Lestrade hesitating to follow, reluctant to have to handle this case.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Jacqueline would have laughed at Holmes's thunderous expression as they entered the mortuary, had she not also been very exasperated herself with who would be on mortuary duty that night. Anderson and Hooper, two people who were never quite cooperative with Holmes which made them an enemy of her as well for she was never pleased with people who disrespected her husband. They did seem to watch their words a bit more when she was around though, likely due to the fact she had kicked Anderson's strumpet Sally Donovan in the shins after she'd made a few too many snide remarks about him within hearing distance of her.</p><p>It had been a very quiet ride in the carriage after Lestrade had revealed that fact.</p><p>"Please tell me which idiot did this!" Holmes demanded as they entered the room to see the body they had come to look at, covered in the typical sheet, but chained down with several straps running down the length of its body and across it.</p><p>"It's for everyone's safety!" Anderson defended, turning from another body to glare at Holmes.</p><p>Watson ignored the fight and moved over to the chained body, able to pull the cover from its face to reveal Emelia Ricoletti, "This woman is dead. Half her head is missing! She's not a threat to anyone!"</p><p>Jacqueline spared a glance at the woman's head before moving further down the body, not wanting to have that image so clearly in her mind for the rest of time, looking more at the parts of Emelia she could see from under the sheet.</p><p>"Tell that to her husband," Anderson pointed back to the body he'd been working on, "He's under a sheet over there."</p><p>"Whatever happened in Limehouse last night, I think we can safely assume it <em>wasn't</em> the work of a dead woman," Holmes remarked dryly.</p><p>"Stranger things have happened."</p><p>"Such as?" Jacqueline looked up at him, an eyebrow quirked.</p><p>Anderson hesitated, whether from being spoken to by a woman or a lack of answer they couldn't say, "Well…strange things."</p><p>"You're speaking like a child," Watson stated.</p><p>"This is clearly a man's work," Holmes glanced down at the body once more, "Where is he?"</p><p>Anderson hesitated once more, though he was saved from answering when the door at the side of the room opened and another man entered, wearing a suit, with messy brown hair and a fuzzy moustache.</p><p>"Holmes," the man greeted, and Jacqueline had to look away, moving over to a book that had notes about the autopsy written on it so the men would not see her small smirk. The voice was deep, yes, but by no means masculine. Hooper would have to work on that if he wanted to keep someone like Sherlock Holmes fooled much longer.</p><p>"Hooper," Holmes barely refrained from sneering.</p><p>"You," Hooper crossed the room, barking an order at Anderson, "Back to work!" waiting till he scurried away before he turned to face the detectives, standing on the other side of the body, "So, come to astonish us with your magic tricks, I suppose."</p><p>"Is there anything to which you would like to draw my attention?" Holmes deadpanned.</p><p>"Nothing at all, Mr. Holmes. You may leave any time you like."</p><p>"Doctor Hooper," Lestrade sighed, "<em>I</em> asked Mr. Holmes to come here. Cooperate. That's an order."</p><p>Hooper rolled his eyes, taking a deep breath, before turning his attention to the body, "There are two 'features of interest,' as you are always saying in Doctor Watson's stories…"</p><p>"I never say that," Holmes defended.</p><p>"You do," Jacqueline remarked, moving back to his side now that she had memorized the notes for his use later, "Quite a lot."</p><p>"First of all," Hooper cut in, "This is definitely Emelia Ricoletti. She has been categorically identified. Beyond a doubt it is her."</p><p>"Then who was that in Limehouse last night?" Watson asked.</p><p>"That was also Emelia Ricoletti."</p><p>"It can't have been. She was dead. She was here."</p><p>Holmes reached into his pocket to pull out a small magnifying glass, leaning in to examine the woman's face more closely.</p><p>"She was positively identified by her own husband seconds before he died," Hooper huffed, "He had no reason to lie. He could hardly be mistaken."</p><p>"The cabbie knew her, too," Lestrade pointed out, "There's no question it's her."</p><p>"But she can't have been in two places at the same time, can she?" Watson frowned.</p><p>Holmes straightened up, thinking, "No, Watson. One place is strictly the limit for the recently deceased."</p><p>"Holmes, could it have been twins?"</p><p>"No."</p><p>"Why not?"</p><p>Jacqueline giggled, already knowing his answer, "Because eet eez never twins," she spoke for him.</p><p>"Emelia was not a twin," Lestrade confirmed, "Nor did she have any sisters. She had one older brother who died four years ago."</p><p>"Maybe it was a secret twin?" Watson suggested.</p><p>"A…what?" Holmes turned to him, staring at him as though that was the most foolish thing he'd ever heard…and <em>Anderson</em> was still in the room.</p><p>"A secret twin. Hmm? You know? A twin that nobody knows about? This whole thing could have been planned."</p><p>"Since the moment of conception? How breathtakingly prescient of her! Leena is correct, it is never twins, Watson."</p><p>Watson crossed his arms, frowning, "Then what's your theory?"</p><p>"More to the point, what's your problem?" Holmes turned to Lestrade.</p><p>"I don't understand," Lestrade shook his head, "What…"</p><p>"You were too frightened," Jacqueline answered, idly looking down at the sleeve of Emelia's gown as it poked out of the sheet, "Nozing we 'ave seen would warrant drinking azz much azz you did," she glanced up at Lestrade as he gaped at her, "And zere eez zis," she gestured to the arm, a handcuff around it, "A dead woman 'as been put under arrest."</p><p>"That would be the other feature of interest," Hooper cut in, reaching out to the arm on her side and lifting the hand to show them the index finger, covered in blood. Watson, Holmes, and Jacqueline leaned in to peer at it more closely.</p><p>"A smear of blood on her finger?" Watson scoffed, "That could have happened any number of ways."</p><p>"Indeed," Hooper agreed, setting the hand down, "There's one other thing. It wasn't there earlier."</p><p>"And neither was that," Lestrade sighed, moving over to a wall and picking up a lantern, turning it to cast more light on the wall where a single word, etched in blood, was smeared across it.</p><p>YOU</p><p>"Holmes!" Watson gasped.</p><p>Holmes could only stare at the wall, not even noticing Jacqueline taking the magnifying glass from him to examine the letters more closely, "Gun in the mouth; a bullet through the brain; back of the head blown clean off. How could he survive?"</p><p>"She," Watson corrected, "You mean."</p><p>"I'm sorry?"</p><p>"Not 'he,' 'she.'"</p><p>"Yes, yes, of course," Holmes waved him off, before shaking himself out of his thoughts when he saw Jacqueline frown, thoughtful, "Qu'est-ce qui ne va pas?" he asked her gently in French, knowing the others in the room were not as fluent.</p><p>"Cela n'a pas été fait par un fantôme," she murmured.</p><p>However, Watson appeared to have worked more on his French since his marriage, "It wasn't a ghost?" he repeated.</p><p>Holmes rolled his eyes, irritated their conversation had been interrupted.</p><p>Jacqueline though, ever the kind woman, ever his humanity, turned to offer Watson a fond smile, "Very good," she praised, before turning back to the message, "Zis was not done by a ghost, qui. Un, zere eez no fingerprint," she held up the glass to show them the ends of the letter, the very last place it would have been touched.</p><p>"Well…if a ghost…" Lestrade began.</p><p>"Ah, but we 'ave zeen her finger," Jacqueline shook her head, "Eet eez meant to make us believe ze body over zere wrote zis. Ze fingerprint would be zere if zis was written by zat body. Zere eez none. Deux, zis means zat whoever wrote zis wore gloves."</p><p>"Fascinating," Lestrade moved forward to look at the letters closer, seeing no distinct pattern of a fingerprint.</p><p>"Trois," Jacqueline continued, "Zee writing is wrong. Eef zis was written by Emelia, using 'er right 'and, which eez where ze blood eez, ze writing would be different. Zis bears ze marks of writing with ze left hand, you see?" she began to trace her own 'YOU' on the wall with her right hand and then the left, being sure not to actually touch the blood, the slanting of the letters fitting more closely to when she used her left hand than her right. She turned, offering Holmes a small smirk, "Ergo?"</p><p>"Emelia Ricoletti did not write this message," Holmes returned her smirk with one of his own, "Someone else did."</p><p>"Who?" Watson frowned.</p><p>"All part of the mystery to solve," Holmes remarked, stepping forward to take Jacqueline's hand, kissing the back of it, his eyes on hers, knowing she was likely already making a list of things they could deduce about who had done this, but at least it confirmed it was a conspiracy and not a ghost, "Well," he turned to nod to Lestrade, "Thank you all for a fascinating case. I'll send you a telegram when I've solved it. Watson?" he called out, leading Jacqueline from the room to head back to the cab, Watson following only a minute or two behind to speak to Hooper about his medical thoughts on the examination.</p><p>"You, my dear, are brilliant," Holmes murmured when they reached the cab.</p><p>Jacqueline merely leaned in to press a kiss to his lips, "I learned from ze best."</p><p>He smiled and helped her into the cab first, glancing over his shoulder when he heard Watson on his way before he, too, climbed in.</p><p>"Well, Holmes?" Watson asked as he joined them, the cab starting off, "Surely you must have some theory."</p><p>"Not yet," Holmes admitted with a sigh, "These are deep waters, Watson. Deep waters," he absently took Jacqueline's hand even as he looked out the window, "And I shall have to go deeper still."</p><p>~8~</p><p>The case of Emelia Ricoletti swept through the city, with numerous articles appearing in the papers about it. Worse yet, it appeared to be spreading, with other men dying at the hands of the 'ghostly bride' which, of course, could only be Emelia Ricoletti in the minds of the unintelligent. It went on for months, more and more cases appearing and with each case, Lestrade would take a visit to 221B Baker Street to bring it to Holmes's attention, much to his irritation.</p><p>Holmes was currently stalking back and forth before the table Lestrade and Jacqueline were seated at, the woman casually reading, as though her husband were not pacing angrily before her, while Lestrade tried desperately to get his attention and interest in the growing case.</p><p>"Five of them now," Lestrade sighed, "All the same, every one of 'em."</p><p>"Hush, please," Holmes remarked, his eyes on a book of his own, open in his hands as his sharp eyes scanned the pages, "This is a matter of supreme importance."</p><p>"What is?"</p><p>"The obliquity of ze ecliptic," Jacqueline answered.</p><p>"I have to understand it," Holmes nodded.</p><p>"What is it?" Lestrade frowned.</p><p>"I don't know. I'm still trying to understand it."</p><p>Jacqueline laughed lightly, closing her book and placing it on the table, "Eet eez ze inclination of ze Earth's equator to ze path of ze sun on ze celestial plane."</p><p>Both men looked over at her for that, she merely winked and sat back in her chair, her grey eyes twinkling at Holmes. She had read that book weeks ago out of sheer boredom.</p><p>"What's so important about this?" Lestrade huffed.</p><p>"What's so important about five boring murders?" Holmes snapped in return.</p><p>"They're not boring! Five men dead! Murdered in their own homes, rice on the floor, like at a wedding, and the word 'YOU' written in blood on the wall! It's her! It's…it's the Bride. Somehow she's risen again!"</p><p>"Even I could zolve zis," Jacqueline gave Lestrade a soft frown, "Mrs. Ricoletti's murder 'as been everywhere. People are merely disguising zier own murders as hers."</p><p>"There you are," Holmes agreed, "Solved," he snapped his book shut and put it on the table on top of Jacqueline's, "Pay Mrs. Hudson a visit on your way out. She likes to feel involved."</p><p>Lestrade frowned, glancing between the two Holmes, hesitant, "You sure?"</p><p>"Certainly," Holmes declared, "Go away. Watson!" he called into the sitting room, reaching out a hand to help Jacqueline up, "I'm ready. Get your hat and boots. We have an important appointment."</p><p>"John 'as not been 'ere for months, Sherwood," Jacqueline reminded him easily, moving to the coatrack by the door to grab her shawl.</p><p>"Oh, yes, right," Holmes shrugged, moving to the door with his wife to pull on his deerstalker hat, "Come, my dear, we have a telegram to send."</p><p>~8~</p><p>"The what of the what?" Watson repeated as he sat across from Holmes and Jacqueline in the carriage, heading off god knew where. He'd received a telegram from them requesting his assistance with something and hurried to find them. It wasn't like he had much to do, Mary was off somewhere and the last thing he wanted was to be home with his bloody maid giving him sass in his wife's absence.</p><p>"The obliquity of the ecliptic," Holmes stated.</p><p>"'Come at once,' you said. I assumed it was important."</p><p>"It is. It's the inclination of the Earth's equator to the path of the sun on the celestial plane."</p><p>"Have you been swotting up?" Watson scoffed.</p><p>"Why would I do that?"</p><p>"To sound clever."</p><p>"I <em>am</em> clever."</p><p>"'e eez reciting from ze book," Jacqueline informed Watson, not bothering to add that it had been HER he was reciting from though.</p><p>"So not all that clever then," Watson joked.</p><p>"'e eez very clever," she defended with a smile.</p><p>"Then why are we on our way to see someone cleverer?" Watson shot Holmes a look, having accurately deduced that at least.</p><p>Holmes narrowed his eyes at him, "Shut up."</p><p>~8~</p><p>Jacqueline sighed as she stepped out of the carriage before the Diogenes Club, never a fan of this part of a case, having to speak to the man who hid away inside. It wasn't that she did not like Mycroft Holmes, it was just that he was often quite harsh on her husband and his eating habits were atrocious. She always walked away feeling ill after witnessing the man eat. Holmes took her hand, kissing the back of it, understanding her dislike of this but thanking her for joining him as they headed inside. They walked past signs asking for absolute silence until they reached an elderly gentleman standing at a desk.</p><p>Holmes nodded his head at the man, putting his gloves in his pocket so that he could more easily use his hands to sign his message, <em>Good morning, Wilder. Is my brother in?</em></p><p>The man, Wilder, nodded, and signed in return, <em>Naturally sir. It's breakfast time.</em></p><p>
  <em>The Stranger's Room?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Yes, sir.</em>
</p><p><em>You, of course, know my wife,</em> Sherlock gestured to Jacqueline.</p><p>
  <em>Of course, of course, welcome, my dear!</em>
</p><p>Jacqueline smiled, giving him a nod and gesturing out the sign for <em>Thank you.</em></p><p><em>And this gentleman is our guest,</em> Sherlock continued with a nod to Watson.</p><p><em>Ah yes!</em> the man smiled at Watson, <em>Doctor Watson, of course. Enjoyed 'The Blue Carbuncle', sir.</em></p><p>Both Holmes and Jacqueline turned to Watson to observe his response, the man looking a bit startled and hesitant, but tried to sign in return, <em>Thank you. I...am...glad...you...liked it. You are very...ugly.</em></p><p>Jacqueline winced as he got the last word wrong, or so she hoped it was wrong, Holmes more gaped at him while Wilder frowned and signed <em>I beg your pardon?</em></p><p><em>Ugly,</em> he repeated, <em>What you said about 'The Blue Fishmonger.' Very ugly...I am glad you liked my potato.</em></p><p>Jacqueline hid a laugh behind her hand and reached out with her other to pat his shoulder.</p><p><em>Yes, needs work, Watson,</em> Holmes commented, rueful, <em>Too much time spent on dancing lessons.</em></p><p>"Sorry, what?" Watson spoke aloud, completely lost.</p><p>Holmes just rolled his eyes, taking Jacqueline's hand to lead her off, leaving Watson there for a moment before he followed, hurrying after them and catching up just as they reached a door to an office. They pushed it open and entered to see a very obese man sitting in a chair, more like wedged in one, his back to the door, surrounded by tray after tray of foods, from puddings to pies, steaks to ham.</p><p>"To anyone who wishes to study mankind, this is the spot," Mycroft called, hearing them enter and shut the door.</p><p>"Handy, really," Holmes remarked as they moved around the food to stand before Mycroft, "As your ever-expanding backside is permanently glued to it. Good morning, brother mine."</p><p>"Sherlock. Jacqueline, dear. Doctor Watson."</p><p>"You look…" Watson began, floundering for a word when Mycroft held out a hand to shake, "Well, sir."</p><p>"Really?" Mycroft looked considering of that, "I rather thought I looked enormous."</p><p>"Oh Mycroft," Jacqueline sighed, "You are going to eet yourself into an early grave at zis rate."</p><p>"She's right," Watson agreed when the man reached for some sort of beverage in a glass nearby, "This level of consumption is incredibly injurious to your health. Your heart…"</p><p>"No need to worry on that score, Watson," Holmes cut in.</p><p>"No?"</p><p>"There's only a large cavity where that organ should reside."</p><p>"It's a family trait," Mycroft agreed, not sounding insulted at all.</p><p>"Hmm," Jacqueline hummed, "Must 'ave skipped a generation," she reached out to fix Holmes's jacket lapel, patting a hand over his heart for a moment, indicating that HE had one at least.</p><p>Watson wasn't amused, by the brothers' banter, "If you continue like this, sir, I give you five years at the most."</p><p>"Five?" Mycroft was shocked, "We thought three, did we not, Sherlock?"</p><p>"I'm still inclined to four," Holmes remarked.</p><p>"As ever, you see but you do not observe. Note the discoloration in the whites of my eyes, the visible rings of fat around the corneas…"</p><p>Holmes rolled his eyes, "Yes, you're right. I'm changing my bet to three years, four months, and eleven days."</p><p>"A bet?!" Watson turned to them, horrified that they were betting on something so serious. Jacqueline did not look pleased but more resigned, as though she had tried to put an end to it at some point but been unsuccessful.</p><p>"I understand your disapproval, Watson," Holmes turned to him, "Jacqueline shares them, I assure you. But if he's feeling competitive it is perfectly within his power to die early."</p><p>"That's a risk you'll have to take," Mycroft agreed.</p><p>"You're gambling with your own life?" Watson turned a frown on Mycroft, utterly stunned that the man seemed intent to eat himself into an early grave as Jacqueline put it.</p><p>"Why not?" he shrugged, "It's so much more exciting than gambling with others."</p><p>"Three years flat if you eat that plum pudding," Holmes called, nodding to a plate of it to the side.</p><p>"Done!" Mycroft cheered and reached over for it, shoving it into his mouth, much to the disgust of those watching.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Woo! I'm so excited to see where Leena and Sherlock's story goes :)</p><p>I hope you enjoyed the chapter, it was a lot of fun to write a more Victorian version of the characters :) I liked being able to tweak them a bit to reflect the times but also who they are at their core. We get a more gentelmanly Sherlock, but one who is very much in love with his wife :) We get a bit more of a Leena who doesn't have all the experience her present self does, who doesn't have that ability to sort of make a career for herself, but who still helps and understands Sherlock and is empowered by him to do what she wants :) And we get a sort of more sexist John, but one who is fiercely protective of his friends and those he loves :)</p><p>This chapter and the next two are mostly going to be lighter in tone than the main episodes will be, fair warning now }:) They are also much shorter, being broken into 3 than 2, so the main episode chapters will be longer :) I think the shortest main-chapter is a little over 16k words so far, so this story is going to be packed with a lot of goodies...and angst...and fluff...and trauma...and mystery of course ;)</p><p>Translations:</p><p>Oh Sherwood, attencion, s'il vous plait! - Oh, Sherwood, attention, please!<br/>Tu t'inquietes trop - You worry too much.<br/>Jamais - Never.<br/>Je suis desole - I am sorry.<br/>Bonjour. Je suis Jacqueline Holmes - Hello, I am Jacqueline Holmes.<br/>Je vais mieux aussi, en t'ayant épousé - I'm better too, having married you.<br/>Merci beaucoup, Jacqueline - Thank you, Jacqueline.<br/>De rien - You're welcome.<br/>Qu'est-ce qui ne va pas? - What's wrong?<br/>Cela n'a pas été fait par un fantôme - This wasn't done by a ghost.</p><p>I don't speak French and many of the translations came from Google Translate, so if they are wrong or if there's a better way to phrase it, please let me know and I'll fix it :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Abominable Bride: Two Enemies</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jacqueline leaned back in the chair she was sitting in, Watson in one beside hers, with Holmes standing behind her, his hands on her shoulder in comfort as they waited for Mycroft to finish eating. She didn't just lean back to be closer to Holmes's comforting presence, but to get as far away from Mycroft as he ate, he was quite messy when he was hungry and he was always hungry. He was enormous, truly, with multiple chins and swollen hands and a gut jutting out so much he would never be able to reach the top of a desk if he sat at one.</p><p>"I expected to see you a few days ago about the Manor House case," Mycroft remarked, licking his fingers as Jacqueline grimaced, before wiping them on a cloth napkin, "I thought you might be a little out of your depth there."</p><p>"No," Holmes stated, "I solved it."</p><p>"It was Adams, of course."</p><p>"Yes, it was Adams."</p><p>Mycroft nodded and looked at Watson, explaining it to him, "Murderous jealousy. He'd written a paper for the Royal Astronomical Society on the obliquity of the ecliptic, and then read another that seemed to surpass it."</p><p>"I know," Holmes huffed, "I read it."</p><p>"Did you understand it?"</p><p>"Yes, of course I understood it!" he snapped, "It was perfectly simple."</p><p>"No," Mycroft rolled his eyes, "Did you understand the murderous jealousy?"</p><p>"Sherwood would 'ave no cause to," Jacqueline remarked, giving Mycroft an unimpressed look at his implication.</p><p>Holmes squeezed her shoulder in thanks, though he had never questioned her fidelity nor her his. One woman had tried to come between them, once. It hadn't ended well for her.</p><p>"I meant it is no easy thing for a great mind to contemplate a still greater one."</p><p>Jacqueline nodded, "And, as I said, Sherwood would 'ave no cause to."</p><p>Holmes didn't bother to disguise his laughter as a cough at her words, the implication that he was cleverer still than Mycroft not lost on any of them.</p><p>"How about we get to the point of this little summons?" Holmes suggested, knowing his brother, contrary to himself, would be petulant about being essentially called the 'stupid one' instead of the 'smart one' and may refuse to be upfront with why he'd summoned them. He had better things to do with his time than stand there and watch his brother gorge himself.</p><p>Mycroft huffed, "Our way of life is under threat from an invisible enemy," he stated, serious now, "One that hovers at our elbow on a daily basis. These enemies are everywhere, undetected and unstoppable."</p><p>"Socialists?" Watson guessed, leaning forward, all too familiar with enemies and war on the horizon and not wanting to experience it again.</p><p>"Not socialists, Doctor, no."</p><p>"Anarchists?"</p><p>"No."</p><p>"The French?"</p><p>"Excusez moi?!" Jacqueline turned a narrow-eyed look on the man, insulted on behalf of her people.</p><p>"I mean…the Americans?" Watson tried to recover, offering more suggestions to help pass up his flub, "The suffragists? The Afgans?"</p><p>Mycroft was unimpressed, "Is there <em>any</em> large body of people you're <em>not</em> concerned about?"</p><p>"Doctor Watson is endlessly vigilant," Holmes defended, it was one of the better qualities about the man, one of the main reasons he trusted his wife to be around the man when he couldn't be. If he was unable, Watson would keep her safe or die trying. He took a moment to eye his brother, debating whether to take the bait of a new case he was presenting, before nodding to himself, he could do with a laugh, "Elaborate."</p><p>"No," Mycroft waved it off, "Investigate. This is a conjecture of mine and I need you to confirm it. I'm sending you a case."</p><p>"The Scots!" Watson deduced, <em>sure</em> he was right this time.</p><p>"Scots?" Holmes cast him an odd look.</p><p>"Are you aware of recent theories concerning what is known as 'paranoia?'" Mycroft eyed him.</p><p>"Ooh, sounds Serbian," Watson remarked.</p><p>Mycroft shook his head and turned to his brother, "A woman will call on you, Lady Carmichael. I want you to take her case."</p><p>"But these enemies," Watson went right back to it, "How are we to defeat them if you won't tell us about them?"</p><p>"We don't defeat them. We must certainly lose to them."</p><p>"Why?"</p><p>"Because they are right, and we are wrong."</p><p>"What eez zis Carmichael case?" Jacqueline cut in, not wanting to lose the strand of the conversation before Mycroft gave them more details.</p><p>"Oh, rest assured, it has..." Mycroft glanced at his brother and smirked, "Features of interest."</p><p>"I never really say that," Holmes defended.</p><p>Jacqueline reached up to pat his hand on her shoulder, "I'm afraid you do," she told him with a smile.</p><p>Holmes let out a silent huff but focused on his brother again, "And you've solved it already, I assume?"</p><p>"Only in my head," Mycroft admitted, "I need you for the, er…" he tried to wiggle his leg but only managed a jerking kick, "Legwork."</p><p>"Why not just tell us your solution?" Watson frowned.</p><p>"Where would be the sport in that? Will you do it, Sherlock? I can promise you a superior distraction."</p><p>"On one condition," Holmes considered it, "Have another plum pudding."</p><p>"There's one on the way," Mycroft smirked.</p><p>Holmes held out his hand to help Jacqueline up, nodding to his brother, "Two years, eleven months, and four days."</p><p>"It's getting exciting now!" Mycroft chuckled, waving his brother off as they headed for the door, "Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock."</p><p>"Dohn't <em>ever</em> make me watch Mycroft eat again, Sherwood," Jacqueline hissed at her husband as they reached the door, "Or I will divorce you."</p><p>Holmes looked down at her with a frown for the threat, but smiled when he caught the softness in her eyes that made her threat empty. He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to it, "I promise."</p><p>~8~</p><p>As Mycroft warned, it didn't take long for Lady Carmichael to approach them. She arrived the very next day to present her case to the most famous detective in London. Holmes and Watson sat in their preferred armchairs, Jacqueline having just prepared tea for the upset woman before moving to stand beside Holmes's chair, her hand on his shoulder as Lady Carmichael began her request.</p><p>"Mr. Holmes, I have come here for advice."</p><p>"That is easily got," Holmes nodded for her to continue.</p><p>"And help."</p><p>"Not always so easy."</p><p>"Sherwood," Jacqueline gave him a light tap on the shoulder.</p><p>"But we shall endeavor to try our best to assist," Holmes offered the woman.</p><p>Lady Carmichael's lip quirked into a small smile at how easily Holmes bowed to his wife's silent request, it was an attribute not often seen in men of these times and part of her wished her own husband could be so cordial. She sighed, focusing on her reason for being there, "Something has happened, Mr. Holmes. Something…unusual and…terrifying."</p><p>"Then you <em>are</em> in luck," Holmes remarked.</p><p>"Luck?" she scoffed.</p><p>"Zey are his specializations," Jacqueline reassured her.</p><p>"This is really <em>very</em> promising," Holmes remarked to his wife and Watson, sounding excited.</p><p>"Holmes," Watson sighed, jerking his head towards Lady Carmichael in a sign of being a little more subdued about it around the frightened woman.</p><p>"Please do tell us what has so distressed you," Holmes forced his smile into a line as he turned back to the woman.</p><p>She sighed, fidgeting, before she worked up the courage to do so, "I…I thought long and hard as to what to do, but then, er, it occurred to me that my husband was an acquaintance of your brother and that, perhaps through him…" she took a breath, "The fact is, I'm not sure this comes within your purview, Mr. Holmes."</p><p>"No?"</p><p>"Lord help me, I think it may be a matter for a priest. You see, we were breaking our fast with our children when my husband received a letter that had him quite out of sorts. He sat there, rigid, his eyes wide, his face pale, just…staring at the contents. It was so noticeable to me that I had to ask the children to leave the room before I felt I could seek what was wrong. It was an envelope with five orange seeds. I thought it was a funny joke, but Eustace…" she swallowed hard, seeming near tears, "He said it was a sign for <em>death</em>."</p><p>"Eet eez, I'm afraid," Jacqueline informed her solemnly, "Some secret societies would send dried melon or orange seeds as a warning to er…" she searched for the word, "Comply with orders or die. Always five pips."</p><p>"Dear lord," Lady Carmichael let out a breath, taking the teacup she'd set aside to take a long sip from it, startled.</p><p>"Did you keep the envelope?" Holmes asked.</p><p>"My husband destroyed it," she shook her head, setting the tea aside again, "But it was blank. No name or address of any kind."</p><p>"Tell me: has Sir Eustace spent time in America?"</p><p>"No."</p><p>"Not even before your marriage?"</p><p>"Well, not to my knowledge."</p><p>"Hmm. Pray continue with your fascinating narrative."</p><p>Lady Carmichael hesitated, not sure if he was being serious or taking a joke on her, but a glance at the man's wife, who nodded encouragingly, told her to go ahead, "Well, that incident took place last Monday morning. It was two days later, on the Wednesday, that my husband first saw her."</p><p>"Who?" Watson frowned.</p><p>"I'm honestly not sure," Lady Carmichael admitted, "I woke to find Eustace missing and went to look for him. He was in the hall, staring out the window at the grounds. He was utterly panicked, sobbing, when he noticed me. He kept saying 'she's come for me,' that his sins had been found out. So I turned to the window…" she trailed off, not sure how her next words would make her husband's mental state sound.</p><p>"You did not see anyzing did you?" Jacqueline guessed.</p><p>She sighed, "Nothing."</p><p>"Did your husband describe…" Holmes began.</p><p>But she cut him off, "Nothing," she repeated, "Until this morning."</p><p>"What happened this morning?" Watson asked.</p><p>"It was more what happened last night," the woman corrected, "I awoke, again, to find Eustace missing. He wasn't in the hall this time, I caught sight of him heading for the hedge maze grown along our property. I rushed to try and catch up to him, made a mess of myself trying, but I DID find him…he wasn't alone," she reached for the tea once more, her hands noticeably shaking now before she set it down again, "There was a woman, standing before him, in a wedding gown, with a thick veil covering her face. Eustace was just…standing there, but he was <em>frightened</em>, so terribly frightened. The woman spoke, she…she said…" she took a breath, "I'll never forget it. She said 'This night, Eustace Carmichael, you will die.' She…she began to lift her veil but Eustace collapsed. I managed to catch him so he wouldn't hit his head in the fall, but…when I looked back, the woman was gone! It was only a moment, but she vanished!" she looked at the two men, who were just staring at her, quiet.</p><p>"Holmes?" Watson asked after a minute of silence.</p><p>"Hush, Watson," Holmes murmured, his eyes focused on something past Lady Carmichael's shoulder, thinking.</p><p>"But Emelia Ricoletti," Watson insisted, "The Bride!"</p><p>Lady Carmichael appeared surprised, "You know the name?"</p><p>"Eet eez a familiar case," Jacqueline offered by way of explanation.</p><p>"You must forgive Watson," Holmes remarked, "He has an enthusiasm for stating the obvious which borders on mania. May I ask: how is your husband this morning?"</p><p>Lady Carmichael sighed, "He refuses to speak about the matter. Obviously I have urged him to leave the house."</p><p>"No, no! He must stay exactly where he is."</p><p>"Well, you don't think he's in danger?" the woman asked, seeming greatly relieved to think so.</p><p>"Oh no, somebody definitely wants to kill him, but that's good for us. You can't set a trap without bait."</p><p>"Oh, Sherwood," Jacqueline murmured beside him, shaking her head at his choice of words.</p><p>But Lady Carmichael was far more outraged, "My husband is not <em>bait</em>, Mr. Holmes!"</p><p>"No," he agreed, "But he <em>could</em> be if we play our cards right. Now, listen, you must go home immediately. Jacqueline, Doctor Watson, and I will follow on the next train. There's not a moment to lose. Sir Eustace is to die tonight."</p><p>"Sherwood," Jacqueline's tone was firmer now.</p><p>"And we should probably avoid that," Holmes added.</p><p>"Definitely," Watson agreed, sending Holmes a look.</p><p>"Definitely avoid that."</p><p>Lady Carmichael looked between them, nodding slowly, before her attention returned to Holmes, "Pardon, though, you…you said your wife would join you?" she said it in such a way that it was clear she had <em>not</em> expected the man to even<em> think</em> to include a woman in this endeavor, such was the behavior of so many men.</p><p>Holmes, however, nodded, speaking as though such a thought was beyond him and had never occurred to him, "I did," he reached up to touch her hand, still on his shoulder, to hold it as he looked up at her, "There were many a case I could never have solved without my better half seeing things I could not comprehend."</p><p>Lady Carmichael could only look on, a combination of touched, heartbroken, and hopeful as she watched Jacqueline lean down to bestow a kiss upon her husband, murmuring, "Flatterer," as she did so.</p><p>~8~</p><p>It was always lovely to travel by train, Jacqueline felt, to see the land spread out and rush by, it was beautiful. She glanced to her left where Holmes was beside her, he always gave her the seat by the window. He would claim to anyone else that it was for her protection, to put himself between her and the door where anyone could enter with any manner of intention. She knew it was because he knew she loved to look out the window at the scenery. It was times like these where she wished Watson was a bit more like her husband, and allowed Mary to join them on these cases, but alas, Watson and Watson alone sat across from them.</p><p>Truly, she would have understood if Watson had not wished Mary to be part of their investigations due to the danger some could present, the way Holmes would sometimes ask her to remain behind. But this was <em>not</em> one of those cases, as evidenced by her being there. No, the man seemed convinced this wasn't the place or work for a woman. While he could not demand Holmes keep <em>her</em> away, for as he often said she was not HIS wife, he could at least ensure his own wife did as he bid. She had come to understand he did not think Mary capable of being of use during these trips, due to being a woman, which was ridiculous as SHE was a woman and often helped.</p><p>Perhaps she should speak to her husband about alternating. Taking Mary on some cases and her on others. She supposed a reason Watson had for not including Mary was that there wasn't much she could do, since SHE was there already and helping with 'whatever women do' and so there was no cause for <em>two</em> women being there. If they alternated, he couldn't use that excuse.</p><p>She would have to be careful about it though, while she had no doubts Holmes could convince Watson to allow Mary to come, a part of her also knew that he enjoyed having her there with him and would not be as inclined to leave her behind just so Mary could join in. He truly did only request her to stay away when he deemed it dangerous, which wasn't as often as others would think. He loved having her there, he loved giving her opportunities to shine and show how well they worked together. He liked to tease that he could solve the crime scene and the victim, but it was her who excelled at understanding the minds of the perpetrators.</p><p>Watson was very skilled in his own way, helping to save the victims who still had life in them, saving some of the perpetrators as well so they could face justice.</p><p>Hmm, perhaps she should find a niche for Mary to fit in, something she could do that the three of them could not to appeal to Watson's sense of duty and purpose…</p><p>"You don't suppose…" Watson began, the comfortable silence of the train growing too much for him while his mind was so racing.</p><p>"I don't," Holmes answered, guessing his thought, "And neither should you."</p><p>"You don't know what I was going to say."</p><p>"You were about to suggest there may be some supernatural agency involved in this matter, and I was about to laugh in your face."</p><p>"You should 'ave," Jacqueline remarked, before blinking, realizing how that had come across at Watson's indignant sputtering, "Laugh, I mean. Not een 'iz face, but laugh," she turned to Holmes and smiled, "I love your laugh."</p><p>Holmes merely smiled as he sat beside her with his eyes shut.</p><p>Watson huffed, "But the Bride!" he finally managed to gather his words, "Holmes, Emelia Ricoletti, again. A dead woman, walking the Earth!"</p><p>"You amaze me, Watson," Holmes opened his eyes, a little peeved that the first sight after such an action had to be Watson and not his wife, but needs must when one was annoyed.</p><p>"…I do?" Watson blinked.</p><p>"Since when have you had any kind of imagination?"</p><p>"Perhaps since I convinced the reading public that an unprincipled drug addict is some kind of gentleman hero."</p><p>"Former," Jacqueline corrected with a firm gaze reminiscent of a mother scolding her child, "Sherwood 'as not touched a drug in <em>years</em>, John."</p><p>Holmes smirked at that, taking her hand and kissing it, he had hit a rather bad patch many years ago. It had been Jacqueline and her unfailing faith in him, her overwhelming compassion, and endless love, that had got him to rights. If the whole world thought he was out of his mind on drugs he wouldn't care, so long as<em> she</em> didn't think the same. Though, he did give some consideration to Watson's defense, "Yes, now you come to mention it, that was quite impressive. You may, however, rest assured there are no ghosts in this world. Save those we make for ourselves."</p><p>"Sorry, what did you say?" Watson frowned at him. But Holmes just closed his eyes and turned to rest his head against Jacqueline's as she lifted her hand to stroke his cheek in comfort, "Ghosts we make for ourselves? What do you mean?"</p><p>Jacqueline could only give him a soft look and lift a finger to her lips with her other hand to tell him to quiet down, Holmes, apparently, had decided to spend the rest of the trip napping.</p><p>~8~</p><p>The Carmichael home was lavish and large, befitting a man so titled as Sir Eustace Carmichael, his drawing room as well reflected the opulence of the rest of the grounds. It was large, carefully decorated, carefully maintained, with a large fireplace set in the middle of the room, before which stood Sir Eustace himself. He was trying to explain away his wife's story once they'd confronted him with her plea for help, Watson standing there, facing the man, Jacqueline having been offered a chair to sit in, while Holmes paced around, observing the room as they spoke.</p><p>"Somnambulism," Eustace defended.</p><p>"I beg your pardon?" Watson blinked, somewhat familiar with the term but not having expected it to be used.</p><p>"I sleepwalk, that's all. It's a common enough condition. I thought you were a doctor. The whole thing was a bad dream."</p><p>"Including the contents of the envelope you received?"</p><p>"Well, that's a grotesque joke," the man forced out a laugh.</p><p>"Lady Carmichael did not zink so," Jacqueline pointed out, the unspoken 'and women are often right to fret' was left unsaid.</p><p>"She's a hysteric," Eustace waved it off, "Prone to fancies…"</p><p>"No," Holmes shook his head, feeling something akin to how he often felt when someone insulted Jacqueline's intelligence rankling him. For that was how it sounded, the man did not sound like he was merely casting off the worries of his wife but making a general statement about women as a whole. And HIS wife was included in that demographic.</p><p>"I'm sorry? What did you say?"</p><p>"I said no," Holmes turned to face him, "She's not an hysteric. She's a highly intelligent woman of rare perception."</p><p>"My wife sees terror in an orange pip," he scoffed.</p><p>"As does mine," Holmes remarked, stepping closer to the man, "Are you saying MY wife is a hysteric?" his tone was very dangerous, daring the man to say such a thing.</p><p>Eustace swallowed hard, "No, of course not."</p><p>Holmes smirked, "Like my wife, your wife can see worlds where no one else can see anything of value whatsoever."</p><p>That, however, drew another scoff from Eustace, "Can she really? And how do you 'deduce' that, Mr. Holmes?"</p><p>Holmes looked him up and down, "She married you. I assume she was capable of finding a reason," he turned to step away, not even concerned when Eustace tried to lunge for him, continuing to speak, knowing his next words would give the man pause, "I'll do my best to save your life tonight, but first it would help if you would explain your connection to the Ricoletti case."</p><p>"…Ricoletti?" Eustace spoke, hesitant, which drew Jacqueline's eye to him.</p><p>"Yes," Holmes turned to him, "In detail, please."</p><p>"I've never heard of her."</p><p>"Liar," Jacqueline murmured, the man had hesitated too long before speaking for his words to be truth.</p><p>"Exactly," Holmes agreed, "Because I didn't mention she was a woman," he eyed the man a moment more, letting him know they'd caught him in his lie, before holding out a hand to help Jacqueline up, "We'll show ourselves out," he told the man, the two of them walking for the door with Watson close behind, "I hope to see you again in the morning."</p><p>"You will not!" Eustace shouted back at them, and they were sure he meant it to be insulting, that he would not allow them back into his home…but given the situation, it was not the reason Holmes drew for it.</p><p>"Then sadly I shall be solving your murder. Good day."</p><p>Jacqueline nodded her thanks to Watson as he stepped ahead to open the door for her, ever the gentleman, and stepped into the entrance hall with the two men, "Well, you tried," Watson shrugged.</p><p>Holmes merely pulled a small book out of his coat pocket and jotted down a message, ripping out the page and handing it to a nearby footman, "Will you see that Lady Carmichael receives this? Thank you. Good afternoon."</p><p>"Yes, sir," the footman nodded and moved to deliver the missive.</p><p>"What was that?" Watson glanced at him.</p><p>"I would say instructions," Jacqueline guessed.</p><p>Holmes nodded, "Lady Carmichael will sleep alone tonight, on the pretense of a violent headache. All the doors and windows of the house will be locked."</p><p>"Why would she…" Watson began.</p><p>"She went after 'er husband twice," Jacqueline answered, "Eef she eez zere, she may be, um, in ze way of ze one who wants Eustace dead. She will try to protect him, and be hurt."</p><p>"How do you know?" Watson frowned, "If the Bride is after Sir Eustace, she wouldn't hurt Lady Carmichael. She hasn't hurt any woman, now that I think about it."</p><p>"Because, zat is what I would do," Jacqueline said simply, the implication that a wife would try to protect her husband clear in the remark.</p><p>"And I you," Holmes promised her in return.</p><p>"And the windows…" Watson began, working it out himself, "You think the Bride will attempt to lure Sir Eustace outside again?"</p><p>"Certainly. Why else the portentous threat? 'This night you will die.'"</p><p>"Well, he won't follow her, surely?"</p><p>"'e could," Jacqueline warned, "'e knew his life was in danger days ago, and yet 'e still went outside ze first time."</p><p>Watson had to nod at that, it was true.</p><p>"It's difficult to say quite what he'll do," Holmes agreed, "Guilt is eating away at his soul."</p><p>"Guilt?" Watson startled, "About what?"</p><p>"Somezing in his past," Jacqueline sighed, "'e was too hesitant when speaking of Emelia."</p><p>"The orange pips were a reminder," Holmes remarked.</p><p>"Not a joke," Watson finished.</p><p>"Not at all. As Leena explained to Lady Carmichael, orange pips are a traditional warning of avenging death, originating in <em>America</em>. Sir Eustace knows this only too well, just as he knows <em>why</em> he is to be punished."</p><p>"Something to do with Emelia Ricoletti," Watson finally caught up as they reached the entrance landing.</p><p>"I presume. We all have a past, Watson. Ghosts, they are the shadows that define our every sunny day. Sir Eustace knows he's a marked man. There's something more than murder he fears. He believes he is to be dragged to Hell by the risen corpse of the late Mrs. Ricoletti."</p><p>Watson considered that for a moment, before he caught sight of Jacqueline fighting a smile and huffed, "That's a lot of nonsense, isn't it?"</p><p>"God, yes," Holmes snorted, "Did you bring your revolver?"</p><p>"What good would that be against a ghost?"</p><p>"Ghosts do not exist," Jacqueline stated, "Whoever eez after Sir Eustace, eet eez a person, real and solid."</p><p>"Did you bring it?" Holmes repeated.</p><p>Watson sighed, "Yeah, of course."</p><p>"Then come, Watson, come," he slipped his deerstalker hat on and led them off, "The game is afoot!"</p><p>~8~</p><p>Holmes rolled his eyes as Watson stood up from where he'd been crouching down, the three of them hidden in the greenhouse of the grounds, Jacqueline sitting beside him on a bucket, her head resting on his shoulder as she dozed. There wasn't much happening right now as they kept watch, so he allowed his wife a moment to rest. Unlike himself and Watson, who could fall asleep in any uncomfortable position or in any moving object, Jacqueline would get terribly sick if she fell asleep on a train or in a carriage, so he would let her rest all she could now. She was very sharp and would wake in an instant should anything happen so he was not worried about drowsiness or a delayed reaction.</p><p>If Watson kept moving around and making complaining noises though, he would undoubtedly wake his wife and he would rather she be as peaceful as possible given the circumstances.</p><p>"Get down, Watson, for heaven's sake!" he hissed as quietly as he could, without moving a muscle beyond his face.</p><p>"Sorry," Watson huffed, moving to sit on a bag of mulch, "Sorry. Cramp," he rubbed at his leg, "Is the, er, lamp still burning?"</p><p>Holmes glanced out the window, peering towards the house where two windows, separated, each had the soft glow of a lamp lit within, "Yes…" and, of course, because he had said as much, one went out, "There goes Sir Eustace," followed quickly by the second lamp in the other window, "And Lady Carmichael. The house sleeps."</p><p>Watson hummed to himself, "Good God, this is the longest night of my life."</p><p>"Have patience, Watson."</p><p>Watson snorted, it was easy for Holmes to say such a thing, the man appeared quite content with his wife beside him, allowing himself to be her pillow. For everything Jacqueline did for her husband, it was no shock to him to see Holmes return the favor in such a way. He let out a breath and pulled his pocket watch out, glancing at the time in the moonlight, "Only midnight. You know," he mused as he put it away, "It's rare for us to sit together like this. Two old friends, just talking, chewing the fat," he glanced at Jacqueline, still sleeping, "Man to man," he almost laughed when Holmes gave him an odd look, "She's a remarkable woman."</p><p>"Of course she is," Holmes rolled his eyes, "I wouldn't have married her if she wasn't."</p><p>"Sweet," Watson smirked, "But I was talking about Lady Carmichael."</p><p>Holmes rolled his eyes and seemed about to physically wave the statement off before remembering his wife, "The fair sex is your department, Watson. I'll take your word for it."</p><p>"YOU noticed it too," Watson defended, "A 'woman of rare perception,'" he snorted, "I know you only noticed because of Leen…Jacqueline," he huffed at the glare Holmes sent him for trying to use Jacqueline's nickname. He'd learned, very early on, that Holmes was the only person on the planet allowed to call Jacqueline 'Leena' but it didn't stop him from subtly trying to sneak it in over the years. He'd yet to manage it, but he tried, "You were comparing her to Jacqueline and saw some sort of similarity, enough to notice that at least."</p><p>He had also learned, quite early on as well, that Holmes had an odd way of perceiving the world, especially when it came to women, which most notably came about when Irene Adler got involved. He learned, in his own way, that there were only two women in Holmes's life. Jacqueline, and everyone else. He had never seen that woman so cross and desperate as when Holmes hardly acknowledged her, when all her tricks and seductive techniques had failed to garner any sort of reaction from Holmes beyond confusion. Yet, with one look from Jacqueline, he would be at her side or behind closed doors with her in an instant.</p><p>Irene Adler was not used to not getting what she wanted, to not being desired when she wanted to be.</p><p>It had been amusing to observe.</p><p>Especially when Holmes seemed to forget the woman even existed a week or so after they'd solved Mycroft's case and Irene had fled England.</p><p>There truly was only Jacqueline in Holmes's mind, eye, and heart, all other women just blended together into not-Jacqueline.</p><p>"If she's anything like Jacqueline," he continued, "She's far too good for him."</p><p>Holmes eyed him, seeming to get the comparison to himself and Jacqueline as well, "You think so?"</p><p>"No, <em>you</em> think so," Watson eyed him, growing more compassionate for the man. He always got like this, whenever a case eluded him or he couldn't work it out instantly, a feeling of failure, of not living up to expectation. And to add this on top of his lingering concerns for Moriarty and his fear that the man had somehow returned from the dead or faked his death and could harm him or Jacqueline at any moment…Holmes had a tendency to be too hard on himself. For all of Jacqueline's assurances that she could never see Holmes as anything other than extraordinary, no matter if he solved a case or not, Holmes sometimes failed to believe it. He wouldn't let his friend jeopardize his marriage over something so foolish if he could help convince him he deserved Jacqueline, "I could tell."</p><p>"On the contrary, I have no view on the matter," Holmes looked away, all too aware of the reason behind Watson's topic of conversation.</p><p>"Yes, you have."</p><p>"Marriage is not a subject upon which I dwell."</p><p>"YOU are married," Watson reminded him.</p><p>"And it is no one's business but my own and Leena's," Holmes pointed out, "I do not tell you how to treat your wife," he reminded Watson, even though he had made numerous comments about how Watson should allow Mary to join them should she wish it he had never outright told the man what to do or not do, "Why are you talking like this?"</p><p>"Why are you so determined to wallow?" Watson finally got to the point, "Don't think I haven't noticed your obsession with the Bride's case," he glanced at Jacqueline, still sleeping, "Holmes," he sighed, "Against absolutely no opposition whatsoever, I am your closest friend."</p><p>"As Jacqueline is my wife, I concede it," Holmes could admit.</p><p>It didn't bother him at all that Jacqueline had held the role of Holmes's closest friend before him, the woman was so much more now and it left the space open. One he was honored to fill, "I am currently attempting to have a perfectly normal conversation with you."</p><p>"Please don't."</p><p>"I just don't want to see you jeopardize your relationship with your wife by putting her to the side while you obsess over an unsolved case," Watson told him.</p><p>Holmes stared at him a moment, "Are we still speaking of Leena and I?" he asked, because he genuinely wasn't sure where <em>that</em> had come from.</p><p>He would never, <em>ever</em> cast his wife aside for a case, especially not when the woman had an uncanny way of getting him to give up and turn down cases with a single 'please.' Watson knew this, he knew there was no cause of concern that his relationship with his wife was in any danger of him not paying her enough attention.</p><p>If Jacqueline had been awake…he might think she would say Watson was 'projecting' his own fears about his own marriage onto them.</p><p>"Who else would we be speaking of?" Watson asked.</p><p>Holmes nodded, Jacqueline would have been wrong then. He looked down at his wife, and his eyes narrowed, noting the tiniest quirk in her lips, the lack of a scrunch to her nose that typically indicated a sound sleep. She had been awake the whole time…and she was clearly convinced she <em>was</em> right.</p><p>"Good god!" Watson suddenly gasped.</p><p>Holmes turned his head to look at the house, following Watson's gaze, to see, through a dark archway, a veiled figure, the Bride, seemingly floating above the ground, an eerie glow about her.</p><p>"Leena," he lightly touched the woman's shoulder, allowing her ruse of still sleeping to play out as he 'woke her' needing her to see this too.</p><p>Jacqueline woke as quickly as normal, taking one look at their faces before spotting the figure as well.</p><p>"What are we to do?" Watson gaped.</p><p>The Bride began to gesture towards herself, as though beckoning others to follow.</p><p>"Zat eez quite ze trick," Jacqueline murmured from beside him.</p><p>Holmes smirked, thinking the same, already having come up with half a dozen ways that image could have been created, "Why don't we have a chat?" he asked calmly, before turning to run out of the greenhouse with the others, across the garden, towards the house. They came to a stop only when they reached the front porch, a few yards away from the image.</p><p>The Bride lowered her hands, still seeming to float above the ground, but her one hand stretched its fingers at them threateningly.</p><p>"Pleasant night for the time of year, is it not?" Holmes asked, unperturbed.</p><p>"It cannot be true!" Watson gaped at the sight, "It cannot!"</p><p>The Bride merely floated backwards to the door, beckoning them to follow.</p><p>"No, it can't," Holmes agreed.</p><p>"And I dohn't zink eet eez," Jacqueline agreed.</p><p>Not a moment later a man screamed inside the house, startling them to looking in that direction, before the sound of shattering glass echoed, drawing their attention back to the doorway to see the Bride had vanished. Holmes ran for the door, trying to open it.</p><p>"Eet's locked, Sherwood," Jacqueline reminded him, "As instructed."</p><p>"That was a window breaking, wasn't it?" Watson looked around.</p><p>"There's only one broken window we need concern ourselves with," Holmes stated, moving to the nearest window he could reach and elbowing his arm through the glass, shoving the rest of it away with his gloved hand. He climbed in first, turning and smiling for a brief moment when he saw Watson assisting Jacqueline up before himself, helping her in, before Watson scrambled after. He hurried to a nearby lamp, picking it up and striking a match to light it, "Stay in here, Watson!" he ordered, rushing forward with Jacqueline.</p><p>"What?" he demanded, "No!"</p><p>"All the doors and windows to the house are locked," Holmes pointed out, turning to him as he passed his wife the lantern, "This is their only way out. I need you here!"</p><p>"But the sound was so close, it had to be from this side of the house."</p><p>"Stay here!" Holmes ordered, moving to Jacqueline who had reached the archway to the hall, following her off into the heart of the house. They ran up the stairs, sure that the scream had come from above, and heard another scream, a woman this time. They hurried in that direction, reaching a landing and moving around a corner to where Lady Carmichael was standing in her nightdress, a pool of blood on the carpet in front of her.</p><p>"You promised to keep him safe!" she accused when she saw them, "You promised! You…<em>you promised</em>!" she broke down in a sob.</p><p>"Ca n'est pas correct," Jacqueline murmured beside him, looking from the woman collapsing into the arms of her maids, who had rushed to her side, and the blood on the carpet, something about all of this screaming it wasn't right, that they were missing something.</p><p>Holmes reached out to take her wrist, turning her, and moving them into the hall again, back to the landing, and looking down at a trail of blood droplets on the floor. They moved up another flight of stairs, to the eave of the house, Jacqueline holding the lantern up high, when they saw something on the floor ahead of them. Eustace, lying dead on the ground, a dagger stuck in his chest. Holmes gestured for Jacqueline to stay back, taking the lantern from her to approach, crouching beside the man and observing his frozen, dread-filled face, the ornate quality of the dagger…</p><p>"Sherwood," Jacqueline called, "Ze house eez awake. Zey would 'ave to make zeir escape."</p><p>Holmes leapt to his feet, she was right about that, and the only point of escape was the window they'd left Watson guarding. He led the way down the stairs, heading across the main hall, towards the side room…only to crash right into Watson as he fled, heading for the stairs.</p><p>"Watson!" Holmes gasped.</p><p>"She's there!" Watson cried out, pointing back the way he'd come, "She's down there!"</p><p>"Don't tell me you abandoned your post."</p><p>"What? Holmes, she's there! I saw her!"</p><p>Holmes grit his teeth, hearing Jacqueline move to Watson to calm the man down, as he took off, heading for the window, but there was nothing there. Whoever it was, they had escaped, "Damn it!" he cursed, before storming back to the stairs where Watson appeared a little calmer, "Empty, thanks to you! Our bird is flown."</p><p>"No!" Watson turned to him, "No, Holmes, it wasn't what you think. I <em>saw</em> her, the ghost."</p><p>"John, zere are no such zings as ghosts," Jacqueline put a hand on his arm, "Only zose who pretend to be."</p><p>Watson swallowed hard, nodding, the…the ghost <em>had</em> seemed rather solid, not transparent like the stories said, "What happened? Where is Sir Eustace?"</p><p>"Dead," Holmes declared, very cross, because now...now they'd have to get the idiots at the Yard involved.</p><p>Wonderful.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Jacqueline would have huffed at how Holmes had positioned them at the top of the stairs when the Yard arrived to photograph the crime scene and collect evidence, had it not been sweet of him to do so. He and Watson were at the top of the stairs, Watson partly in the hall, with Lestrade by the railing, and Holmes with his back to the corner of the wall, facing the men. He was creating a barrier, in a way where she could not turn in that direction and spy the body at the end of the hall being photographed. He knew her memory was sharp, that she could remember anything she'd read or recall any picture she had seen and he always did his best to keep from exposing her to dead bodies at any length of time. Even when she would take notes for him on his experiments, he set things up so he blocked the body or covered up anything that didn't need to be exposed for the experiment.</p><p>She wouldn't complain about his consideration, it was not an image she would want in her mind any more than necessary.</p><p>"You really mustn't blame yourself, you know," Lestrade was speaking.</p><p>"No," Holmes agreed, reaching over to pat Jacqueline's hand as it rested on his forearm, her way of agreeing, "You're quite right."</p><p>"I'm glad you're seeing sense," Watson huffed.</p><p>"Watson is equally culpable," Holmes continued, "Between us, we've managed to botch this whole case. I gave an undertaking to protect that man; now he's lying there with a dagger in his breast."</p><p>"You DID say eef he did not survive you would investigate his murder," Jacqueline corrected lightly.</p><p>"In the confident expectation I would not have to," Holmes expressed with a breath of irritation, not at her, never at her, but his own failing here.</p><p>"Anything you can tell us, Doctor?" Lestrade called to Watson, who had stepped away when Holmes started on him to examine the body now that the photos were done.</p><p>"Well, he's been stabbed with considerable force," Watson stated the obvious.</p><p>"It's a man, then."</p><p>Jacqueline turned to him, her hands on her hips, "And what makes you zink a woman could not stab a man?" she defended, sounding offended.</p><p>"Oh, er, um," Lestrade fumbled, not quite sure how to answer without causing more offense, the smirk on Holmes's face telling him to dare to try. But there was no way to win. Say a woman couldn't do it, and it would be offensive to her that a woman could do anything a man could. Say a woman could have done this, well it seemed an offense to him to their general nature as carers and polite individuals.</p><p>"A woman is very much capable of anything," Holmes, in a surprising moment, took pity on the man. Though it was more that he was irritated enough and would rather do without the uneven gait Lestrade would be using as he walked around after Jacqueline kicked him in the shins for his assumption.</p><p>"Merci beaucoup, Sherwood," Jacqueline smiled at him, giving Lestrade a firm nod.</p><p>"In fact, I drafted a paper comparing the stab wounds inflicted by men to those of women," Holmes continued, gesturing between himself and Jacqueline, subtly telling the man that yes, his wife DID have experience stabbing someone.</p><p>It was a cadaver on a frame to stand, with only the torso exposed, but it was enough. She'd needed a bit more incentive to actually go through with it, going so far as to draw a rough version of Moriarty's face on the sheet covering the body's face to help. One would never think watching one's wife stab a rendition of his greatest enemy would lead to such a rush of warmth through the body, but it had. Knowing his wife loved him so much, knowing she hated Moriarty for harming him and putting him in the situations he had, knowing she would take a knife to the man for all he'd done to him...god, he loved his wife.</p><p>Lestrade seemed to grow a bit green at the thought of a woman murderer, and moved to join Watson by the body, examining the weapon in a desperate bid to change the subject, "A very keen blade, so it could conceivably have been a woman, yes."</p><p>"In theory, yes," Watson agreed, "But we know who it was. I saw her."</p><p>Holmes sighed, "Watson…"</p><p>"I saw the ghost with my own eyes!"</p><p>"You saw <em>nothing</em>!" Holmes snapped, "You saw what you were supposed to see."</p><p>"You said yourself: I have no imagination."</p><p>"Then use your brain, such as it is, to eliminate the impossible, which in this case is the ghost, and observe what remains, which in this case is a solution so blindingly obvious, even Lestrade could work it out."</p><p>"Thank you!" Lestrade called for the vote of confidence...even if he really had absolutely no idea who it was or how this happened.</p><p>"Forget specters from the otherworld," Holmes nearly shouted, until Jacqueline squeezed his forearm to soothe him. He took a breath, speaking more calmly, "There is only one suspect with motive and opportunity. They might as well have left a note."</p><p>"They <em>did</em> leave a note," Lestrade remarked, pulling Jacqueline's attention over to him, the woman pushing past Holmes to go see what it was.</p><p>"And then there's the matter of the other broken window."</p><p>"What other broken window?"</p><p>"Zere isn't one," Jacqueline nodded, following along with what her husband had said. While she did not possess his mental capabilities with deducing things around him, she <em>had</em> spent enough time around him that when he began to detail what he noticed, it was easier for her to piece it together along the way. She gave Lestrade a grim smile in thanks, he had turned the note this way and that for her to read it.</p><p>He had learned it was far easier to allow Jacqueline to see certain photos and evidence than have to provide Holmes with a second copy of it all. The girl's memory was astounding!</p><p>Holmes nodded, "The only broken window in this establishment is the one the three of us entered through, yet prior to that we distinctly heard the sound of...what did you just say?" he turned to Lestrade sharply.</p><p>"Sorry?" the man looked over, startled.</p><p>"About a note. What did you just say?"</p><p>"There eez a note," Jacqueline straightened up, "Even zough zere wasn't before," she gave Holmes a meaningful look, this was more evidence pointing to who had done this.</p><p>He strode forward and looked down at the body and, sure enough, there was a note on a string tied around the dagger. And his wife was right, it had NOT been there when they first found the body.</p><p>"Eet says 'Miss me?'" Jacqueline looked at him, cautious, knowing what those two words would cause his mind to jump to. She moved over to her husband's side as he stared at the body, knowing he would need her close when his mind was able to function again, to remind him they were together, both of them were alive.</p><p>And Moriarty wasn't.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Jacqueline did her best to sip the tea she'd been given as she sat across from Mycroft in the Diogenes Club, the man, thankfully, NOT eating for once so she could at least stomach her beverage. Holmes had been offered tea of his own but it sat untouched on the small table beside her. Her husband was pacing the room behind her chair while Mycroft observed him and his recounting of the Carmichael case.</p><p>"Do you?" Mycroft interrupted.</p><p>Holmes paused in his pacing to turn to him, "Do I what?" Mycroft merely held up the bloodstained note that had been left behind with Sir Eustace's body, "How did you get that? I left it at the crime scene!"</p><p>"'Crime scene?'" Mycroft snorted, setting the note down, "Where do you pick up these extraordinary expressions? Do you miss him?"</p><p>"Moriarty eez dead," Jacqueline stated, setting her tea aside.</p><p>"And yet…"</p><p>Holmes sighed, moving to his wife and placing his hands on her shoulders as he often did when his mind was racing too fast and he needed something to ground him in the now, "His body was never recovered."</p><p>"To be expected when one pushes a maths professor over a waterfall," Mycroft shrugged, "Pure reason toppled by sheer melodrama, your life in a nutshell."</p><p>"Careful, Mycroft," Jacqueline narrowed her eyes at him, "In your current state you cannot 'ope to evade a well placed kick."</p><p>Mycroft held his hands up in peace.</p><p>Holmes narrowed his eyes at the movement, "Have you put on weight?"</p><p>"You saw me only yesterday," Mycroft challenged, "Does that seem possible?"</p><p>"No."</p><p>"Yet here I am, increased. What does that tell the foremost criminal investigator in England?"</p><p>"In England?" Holmes gave him an offended glare.</p><p>"There are, I imagine, other criminal investigators in other countries," Mycroft mused, glancing at Jacqueline, "I'm sure your wife could hold her own quite well in France."</p><p>"Better," Jacqueline challenged, "But my 'usband and I are a team."</p><p>"Yes," Mycroft let out a breath, sounding almost regretful of that. Partly due to the fact that she could do so much for the French, partly because her bond with his brother was, he was sure, going to lead to an early grave despite his best efforts to keep them both safe, "You're in deep, Sherlock," he tried to warn his brother, "Deeper than you ever intended to be. Have you made a list?"</p><p>"Of what?" Holmes scoffed.</p><p>"Everything. We will need a list," he held out an expectant hand and Holmes pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, "Good boy."</p><p>Holmes made as though he was going to hand it to Mycroft, before he pulled back and bestowed it upon Jacqueline instead as she rose from the chair, "No," he told Mycroft, "I haven't finished yet."</p><p>"Moriarty may beg to differ."</p><p>Holmes huffed, "He's trying to distract me, to derail me."</p><p>"Yes. He's the crack in the lens, the fly in the ointment…the virus in the data."</p><p>"I have to finish this," Holmes declared, but more to Jacqueline who had moved to his side after perusing the list of all the possible ways Moriarty could have returned to hand back to him.</p><p>"If Moriarty has risen from the Reichenbach cauldron, he will seek you out," Mycroft continued to warn.</p><p>"Let him," Jacqueline turned her chin up in defiance.</p><p>"I'll be waiting," Holmes agreed.</p><p>"And not alone," she, at the last moment, to be polite, gave him a nod of her head, "Good day, Mycroft," before she and Holmes walked out.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Awww, some sweet moments for Sherlock and Leena :) I really liked making the parallels to their modern counterparts, giving them both those little changes to personality, but still aiming for it to be very much them, I hope it translated :) I have to say, I'm a bit more excited for the next chapter than this one, we get some modern moments, some more dream-like moments, and basically any time where Mycroft gets one-upped is good in my book ;)</p><p>I feel like the way John describes Sherlock's perception of the world is accurate, if it's not Leena then most women just sort of fade to the background :) I know there was much more angst with Irene in the modern telling than in this Victorian version, but as we'll soon learn this is more Sherlock's imagining of an old case, I felt like he'd take some liberties with that memory. He would want to imagine it the way he would have wanted it to go, where he one-upped Irene and Leena wasn't hurt and there was no confusion on her end for where his heart rested :) I feel like that might also be a bit more for why he's a tad more affectionate and open with his love for Leena in this imagining, it's in his head so he can express himself more and, so far, it's just him and Leena on the plane so he can spin it how he would have wanted it. Him and Leena married from the go, Irene not a threat, him protecting Leena from dangers and terrible sights and so on :) I can say there's a reason for that ;)</p><p>Translations:</p><p>Excusez moi?! - Excuse me?!<br/>Ca n'est pas correct. - It is not correct.<br/>Merci beaucoup. - Thank you very much.</p><p>Again, don't speak French so most of the translations came from Google Translate and if they are wrong or if there's a better way to phrase it, please let me know and I'll fix it :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. The Abominable Bride: Three Dreams</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Just a quick note, the parts in italics are moments where events are taking place in the 'real' world/modern era ;)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Two days later would find Jacqueline sitting on the sofa of 221B, a book open in her hand where she had written down the list of all of Holmes's notes regarding the 'ghost bride' while the man himself lay stretched out on the sofa, his head resting in her lap while her other hand absently stroked through his hair. She had once thought it a distraction to him and would quickly stop when she realized what she was doing, though he had confessed it soothed him and relaxed him, allowed him to think more clearly and so she kept on.</p><p>He wanted to go through every detail of every 'bride' case, every killing, to try and find some clue about how Emelia had seemingly survived her initial death.</p><p>And she knew it was not a mere curiosity to how she pulled off such a feat, but a genuine fear he had that, if she could, another might have as well.</p><p>"Eet eez not Moriarty," Jacqueline reassured him as she set the book aside.</p><p>"We cannot be certain," Holmes countered.</p><p>For as much as he would wish it to be so, he could not take that risk with Jacqueline's life. If Emelia could survive the first shot to the head, enough to be recognized and functioning as so many claimed, then so could Moriarty for he had endured the same end to his life as well. And that would mean his most foul of enemies was still alive somewhere, and that his wife and the life he had built with her was in terrible danger. If there was no possible way she had survived it, then he would know Moriarty was gone. But he had to be SURE.</p><p>"'e would 'ave done much more damage," she pointed out, "'e would not go after zese men, zey are too…small for him," she tried to find the right word, "'e would want more chaos."</p><p>Holmes had to agree with that. When he first learned of this Moriarty figure, he had spoken with her about it and she had drafted up a list of qualities he was likely to possess, to help him understand the man's next move. It was eerie how spot on she had been. If she thought he wouldn't react in this manner if he had lived, then he believed her. But that suspicion that he <em>could</em> still be out there was driving him up the wall. The number of times he had almost turned to his drugs and pipe in the last two days alone were concerning, but Jacqueline had been there each time, ready to distract him with a much better drug, one that calmed his mind and made his heart race.</p><p>"The fact he was able to enter our home no less than 6 times…" Holmes sighed, reaching up to take her now free hand in his own, looking at her digits as he fiddled with her hand.</p><p>"Eet eez disturbing," Jacqueline agreed, "Especially when he tried our bed."</p><p>They had had to throw it out and purchase a new one, just to remove the violating feeling of someone else sharing their bed but them.</p><p>"But he eez gone," she continued, "You made sure of zat, Locksley," she added, leaning down to kiss his forehead, earning a small smile from him.</p><p>"The Bride put a gun in her mouth and shot the back of her head off," Holmes spoke, "And then she came back. It <em>should</em> be impossible. But she did it, and I need to know how. Because this is exactly how he died. How can he be alive? How could he survive?"</p><p>"How could she?"</p><p>"She couldn't."</p><p>"Zere you go zen," Jacqueline said simply, "We are all human, Locksley, one cannot survive such a wound, no matter who zey are," she hummed in consideration, "Perhaps...do not fret over how she survived but instead…how zese events happen when eet eez not her. Maybe eet can tell you zomezing about her. Not twins, but zese copy cats."</p><p>"Copy cats," Holmes repeated, before lurching straight up on the sofa, turning to face her, "COPY cats!" he reached out to take her face in his hands, kissing her soundly, "You are brilliant," he murmured, kissing her forehead, before leaping up and taking her hand to pull her to the door, when he was suddenly seized by a severe bout of shaking...</p><p>~8~</p><p>
  <em>Sherlock Holmes's eyes snapped open and he sent the foulest glare he possibly could towards the male flight attendant who had shaken his shoulder. Leena, beside him, bit her lip to keep from laughing at the absolute loathing on Sherlock's face at the interruption of the story he'd been telling her. They were sitting on a somewhat long sofa on the side of the plane they'd been exiled in, his head on her lap, a hand running through his hair, while he recounted, at length and in great detail, the story of Emelia Ricoletti and his musings for how he would have solved the case had he been around back in the 1880s. She was more amused by the fact that she, John, and Mary had featured into the story as well. The second Mycroft told them they were going to be coming back to England because, apparently, Moriarty had returned, Sherlock had immediately reviewed every case he'd ever even heard of for something similar, someone who had blown their head off and come back to life, to solve how Moriarty might have survived or what could be happening to explain his sudden reappearance. She'd stopped off to the plane's loo for a moment, her stomach turning, likely from how the plane had veered back sharply, he'd taken one look at her when she'd stepped back, beamed, and launched into the tale.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She'd known better than to interrupt him while he'd been on such a tangent, though the attendant clearly hadn't.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"We've landed, sir," he remarked, glancing from Sherlock to Leena to repeat, "We've landed."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"No, no, no, not now, not now!" Sherlock huffed, "No, no, no, not now, not now!"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Thank you," Leena offered the man who looked more than a little bewildered at Sherlock's behavior.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"I trust you had a pleasant flight, ma'am?" the female captain asked as she passed them, heading for the doors to allow Mycroft Holmes in as the man had been the one to request their return to ground.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Yes, thanks," Leena nodded, before looking down at Sherlock as he pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes in frustration, thrown off his stride by the interruption and knowledge that he'd have even more coming in the moments to follow.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Well," Mycroft spoke before Leena could utter a word of comfort to Sherlock, the man climbing aboard, "A somewhat shorter exile than we'd imagined, brother mine, although adequate given your levels of OCD."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sherlock ignored him, lowering his hands to look up at Leena, "I have to go back!"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"What?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Leena, though, merely nodded and ran a hand through his hair, "Then go, I'll be listening," she promised, glancing up at Mycroft who was eyeing Sherlock worriedly, "He almost had the answer to the case," she said by way of explanation to the question in his eyes.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"What on earth are you talking about?" Mycroft demanded.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Go back where?" John asked as he and Mary came up behind Mycroft, "You didn't get very far."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Ricoletti and his abominable wife!" Sherlock groused, "Don't you understand?!"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"No, of course we don't," Mary moved to sit down on a rather comfy looking chair, "You're not making any sense, Sherlock."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Leena shushed him quietly, letting him close his eyes as she looked over at them, explaining, "It was a famous case from about 140 years or so ago, the woman involved appeared to be dead, shot herself, but then, somehow, came back," she lifted an eyebrow at Mycroft, "Sound familiar?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Like Moriarty?" John followed.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Shot herself in the head, exactly like Moriarty," Sherlock muttered, trying to slow his breathing and go back to where he'd been actually picturing out the scene in his mind while he described it to Leena.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It was a mental technique she had adapted that often helped him recount images of scenes he needed a second look at. It was a sort of cognitive interview, helping him relive a scene or room, picture it again, only this time a little more in depth where he made it up. But she would ask questions as he went to help him feel like he was actually there, what he would have smelt, what he would have felt, and so on.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"But you've only just been told," Mary remarked, "We've only just found out. He's on every TV screen in the country."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"It's also been five minutes since Mycroft called," Leena reminded them, "And we DO have phones, it was trending on twitter in under a minute."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"What progress have you made?" Sherlock turned his head on Leena's lap to eye Mycroft, "What have you been doing?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"More to the point, what have you been doing?" John eyed them with a laugh, they were both quite cozy on that sofa, Sherlock hadn't even moved to sit up.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Sherwood has been giving me quite a bedtime story," Leena joked back, "He was telling me how he'd solve the crime if he'd been there when it happened."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Mycroft, instead of looking a little amused as the Watsons were, merely frowned down at Sherlock, angry and disappointed, "Oh, Sherlock."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"I had all the details perfect!" Sherlock sounded very close to a whine, "I was there, all of it, everything! I was immersed in my Mind Palace."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Of course you were."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"I know," Leena soothed him, ignoring Mycroft to continue running both her hands through his hair now, "You can still bring them up again."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Mycroft frowned at her now, "You really think anyone's believing him?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"No, he can do this," John defended, "I've seen it, the Mind Palace. It's like a whole world in his head."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"The Mind Palace is a memory technique. I know what it can do; and I know what it most certainly cannot."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Leena snorted, "Just because YOU can't do it, doesn't mean Sherwood can't."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Mycroft appeared even less amused, "Did you make a list?" he asked her, knowing Sherlock likely wouldn't have, he did like to make things difficult.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"I make lots of lists, Mycroft, you're going to have to be more specific."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"You know damn well which list I'm talking about!" Mycroft nearly snapped at her, "Did you make a list of everything he's taken?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"What the hell makes you think he's taken anything?" Leena glared at him now, her hands stilling in their running, which made Sherlock smirk at the tone of her voice even if he was disappointed in the fact that she stopped.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Look at him!"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"He's content, Mycroft," Leena spoke, a hint of ice in her voice, "I know it's a foreign concept when he's around you, but with ME he DOES relax! And for you to even suggest that he's used anything? After everything? He hasn't needed a list in years, you absolute prick."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"What…what list is this?" Mary asked even as Sherlock snorted at Leena's words.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"We have an agreement, my brother and I, ever since that day," Mycroft sighed, rubbing his head, "Wherever I find him, whatever back alley or doss house, there will always be a list of the drugs he's taken."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"You should have told me the first time," Leena shot a positively venomous glare at Mycroft, "We could have sorted it sooner."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"I was trying to protect you," Mycroft looked at her, "No one deceives like an addict."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She hadn't been the first person to know Sherlock had gotten into a bad way with drugs, no, that had been Mycroft. She was of the belief that, had Mycroft not gotten involved in 'caring' for his brother, she would have seen it all much sooner than she had and handled it faster. But between the Holmes brothers, between Mycroft helping to cover it up and sober him up during times he'd spend with her, certain tells had slipped through the cracks. When she had finally seen what was happening…</em>
</p><p>
  <em>That had been THE most explosive fight she had ever had with Mycroft in her entire life…and Sherlock had been so strung out through most of it he barely remembered the very creative words she used and likely couldn't remember a word of the French she'd slipped into when her anger had been highest.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>After that SHE had demanded to be the one to find Sherlock, to get him out, to try and help him. Mycroft wouldn't let her assist or do much at first, but she'd hacked his phone and put a tracer on his precious umbrella and she would show up wherever he went to collect Sherlock. He said he was trying to protect his parents and her from seeing him like that. She'd been spitting angry he had hidden it, that he hadn't gotten Sherlock help.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He kept saying Sherlock would refuse and 'I know my brother' and so many other excuses that she had all but called him an enabler.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Part of her getting Sherlock clean had been to spite Mycroft. She loved Sherlock, she wanted him clean and sober for his own health and wellbeing, which was why she'd locked them both away during that awful time. That was the largest part of it, but a smaller part was to show Mycroft he was wrong and that Sherlock COULD be helped and could stay clean if one just went about it the right way. Who the hell knew if her way had been the right way at all or if she could have done something better, different, faster, but it worked in the end.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She still had never forgiven Mycroft for not coming to her the first time it happened, thinking about all those times Sherlock had spiraled the way he had, the ways he'd suffered, the danger he'd put himself in.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sherlock moving cut through her thoughts, the man reaching into his pocket to pull out a folded piece of paper, handing it to John.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>John frowned but opened hit, his eyes instantly widening with shock.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Mycroft froze, staring at John's expression, his heart stopping at the realization…there WAS a list this time and SHERLOCK had kept it…his eyes shot to Leena, never wanting her to experience what he had, especially after all her efforts to keep his brother clean...only...she was smirking now.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Um," John cleared his throat, trying to hand the paper back, but Mary had gotten up to snatch it and see what it was, "That's…something."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Mary snorted and burst out laughing, "Interesting choices," she agreed, handing the paper back to Leena.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"This is a serious matter!" Mycroft snapped when John began to smile.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Leena rolled her eyes and bunched the paper into a ball to throw at Mycroft, the man shooting her a glare when he unrolled it…</em>
</p><p>
  <em>His eyes narrowed so much that she was sure, for a moment, he'd closed his eyes.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Funny," he sneered at them, "So very funny," before he threw the ball away.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It was a list alright.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>A list of every name under the sun that they had ever considered calling him besides BomE, not all of them in English, and a few in particular he recognized from that one explosive fight with Leena years ago, in French. It appeared some of it had actually stuck in Sherlock's memory.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"So this Emelia Ricoletti," Mary pulled out her phone to try and look her up, "What exactly was her case…"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Here," Leena called out, tossing her phone to the woman, "I've already got it up."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"And I have access to the top level of the MI5 archive…" Mycroft added, seeing Sherlock didn't appear about to move before he finished 'solving the case.'</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Yeah," Mary laughed, "That's where I'm looking," she wiggled Leena's phone, which made him roll his eyes at the fact that, of course, Leena had hacked into MI5, "Emelia Ricoletti. Unsolved like they said."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sherlock let out a huff now, "Could you all just shut up for five minutes?" he snapped, "I was nearly there before you stepped on and starting yapping away."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Yapping?'" John snorted.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Leena chuckled, resuming running her hand through his hair, "Go on, Sherwood, I want to hear the end of the story."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Thank you!" he huffed, turning his head slightly to press a kiss to the nearest area to his lips which made her giggle somewhat when he hit a ticklish place on her stomach, "Now…where was I…"</em>
</p><p>~8~</p><p>"Ah, Watson!" Holmes cheered as they reached the door and threw it open, only to see Watson heading up the stairs.</p><p>Watson took one look at his ecstatic expression and sighed, turning his gaze to Jacqueline beside him, "Which is it today, morphine or cocaine?"</p><p>Jacqueline shook her head, a soft smile on her face, "Neither. You know I do not allow zat in our home."</p><p>Watson had to chuckle at that, from what Holmes had told him, a story from many years ago, once he had cleaned up, he had allowed Jacqueline to tear the flat apart and threw every ounce of any sort of drug out the window.</p><p>"Sherwood, I zink, has had a breakthrough," she continued.</p><p>"Really?" Watson turned to him, his eyes wide, "Good lord, what is it?"</p><p>Before Holmes could speak though, the houseboy, Billy, ran up the stairs, "Mr. Holmes! Mr. Holmes! Telegram, Mr. Holmes!" he hurriedly offered the telegram to Holmes and rushed off again.</p><p>Holmes frowned, not having expected a telegram and opened it, his eyes scanning it quickly, before his eyes widened. Jacqueline, who was beside him reading over his arm, gasped, a hand moving to her mouth.</p><p>"What is it?" Watson frowned, "What's wrong?"</p><p>"Eet eez Mary," Jacqueline told him, hurrying for her coat on the rack as Holmes moved to grab his own.</p><p>"Mary? What about her?"</p><p>"It's entirely possible she's in danger," Holmes warned him, swinging on his coat as well, taking the deerstalker hat from his wife.</p><p>"Danger?!"</p><p>"There's not a moment to lose."</p><p>"What danger could Mary be in? I'm sure she's just visiting with friends."</p><p>"Come on!" Holmes called, hurrying down the stairs with the two following close behind, running out onto the street and looking around for a cab.</p><p>Jacqueline merely strode ahead and held a hand into the air, "Cab!" she called out, and one quickly pulled up for he lovely woman. She winked back at her husband and Watson, before climbing in, not about to let her husband tell her to stay away from this one, not when one of her dear friends was in danger too.</p><p>~8~</p><p>As soon as the cab hit the countryside, it took off at Holmes's urging for haste, a fast canter careening them towards their destination just as dusk began to fall.</p><p>"So, tell me, where is she?" Watson demanded, having needed some time to gather himself and prepare himself for the answer, "You must tell me. What's going on?"</p><p>"Oh, good old Watson!" Holmes muttered, "How would we fill the time if you didn't ask questions?"</p><p>"Sherwood," Jacqueline reached out to touch his arm, "Eet eez <em>his wife</em>," she reminded him, "How would you be eef eet was me?"</p><p>Holmes fell silent at that, nodding, taking the hand she'd placed on him to kiss her knuckles, before turning to Watson, "She's at a de-sanctified church. She thinks she's found the solution and, for no better reason than that, she's put herself in the path of considerable danger," he glanced away, "I must say, Watson, you've made an excellent choice of wife. Not so great as my own, but near."</p><p>Jacqueline rolled her eyes at that, but leaned in to press a kiss to his cheek, knowing it was Sherlockish for quite a high compliment to Watson.</p><p>It was only another few minutes before they arrived at the church, the two men and Jacqueline bounding out and running through the cloisters in search of Mary. They made it halfway through before Mary herself stepped out in front of them.</p><p>"What the devil?!" Watson nearly shouted at the sudden appearance.</p><p>"I've found them!" Mary exclaimed, beaming as she pointed into the church, pausing when a distant chanting began. She put a finger to her lips and led them towards the sound, moving down a series of steps.</p><p>"What is all this, Mary?" Watson demanded quietly.</p><p>"This is the heart of it all, John, the heart of the conspiracy."</p><p>She continued to lead them on to the vaults, until they reached a pair of arched stone, windows through which they could see a procession of people, likely women given the voices chanting the Latin phrases, walked past, all wearing dark blue robes with pointed conical hats that were veiled to cover their faces.</p><p>"Great God, what <em>is</em> this place?" Watson breathed as he and Jacqueline looked through one window, Mary and Holmes through another, "And what the devil are you doing here?" he asked his wife.</p><p>"I've been making enquiries," Mary said simply, "Mr. Holmes asked me."</p><p>"Holmes, how could you?!"</p><p>"No, not him. The clever one."</p><p>"I cannot recall a 'cleverer' one," Jacqueline remarked, which made Mary smile.</p><p>"It seemed obvious to me that this business could not be managed alone," Mary continued, "My theory is that Mrs. Ricoletti had help, help from her friends."</p><p>"Copies," Holmes murmured, nodding, "Bravo Mary," he offered, before blinking, "'The clever one?'"</p><p>Watson let out a breath and turned to his wife, moving over to her while Holmes went to join his own wife, "I thought I was losing you. I thought perhaps we were neglecting each other. You're working for Mycroft?"</p><p>"He likes to keep an eye on his mad sibling," Mary shrugged, "And he knew not to ask Jacqueline after the last time."</p><p>Holmes smirked recalling the limp his brother had had when he'd first made the mistake of asking Jacqueline to do such a thing. She had perfected the art of kicking one in the shins some time ago.</p><p>"'aving an already trained spy would help," Jacqueline remarked, nodding, only for Watson to gape and look from her to Mary, startled.</p><p>Holmes caught on, realizing Watson hadn't realized the truth about Mary that he and Jacqueline had, "Has it truly never occurred to you that your wife is excessively skilled for a nurse?"</p><p>"Of course it hasn't," Mary smirked, "Because he knows what a nurse is capable of. When did it occur to you?"</p><p>"26 hours after we met," Jacqueline remarked, at the same time Holmes said, "Only now, I'm afraid."</p><p>Holmes looked at his wife, surprised, but she merely turned to Mary as though in apology, "I 'ad a cold you see, mal de tete terrible."</p><p>"I'll let it pass this time," Mary teased back, a headache was a good enough excuse for her, though she couldn't help but add another tease to Holmes, "Must be difficult being the slow little brother."</p><p>"Time I sped up," Holmes decided, determined to make up for his lax observations of Mary and impress his wife once more, "Enough chatter. Let's concentrate."</p><p>"Yes, alright," Mary turned to watch the procession, "What's all this about? What do they want to accomplish?"</p><p>"Why don't we go and find out?" he mused, turning to head through the vaults, passing a few columns and finally reaching a small chapel where the procession had ended, the women gathered, still chanting. He looked over at a gong set to the side and moved to grab the mallet, banging it loudly enough to draw their attention, "Sorry. I could never resist a gong. Or a touch of the dramatic."</p><p>"Never have guessed," Mary muttered, sending Jacqueline a look as though to ask 'how do you put up with that?'</p><p>"Though it seems you share my enthusiasm in that regard," Holmes continued as though he hadn't heard her speak, moving into the middle of the gathering, "Excellent. Superlative theater. I applaud the spectacle," he gave them a grin, slowly walking back to his wife's side, turning to eye them all, "Emelia Ricoletti shot herself, then apparently returned from the grave and killed her husband. So, how was it done? Let's take the events in order. Mrs. Ricoletti gets everyone's attention in very efficient fashion. She places one of the revolvers in her mouth while actually firing the other into the ground. An accomplice sprays the curtains with blood and thus her apparent suicide is witnessed by the frightened crowd below. She falls backwards into the room, where another woman is already lying, wearing an identical wedding dress and makeup. A substitute corpse bearing a strong resemblance to Mrs. Ricoletti takes her place and is later transported to the morgue. A grubby little suicide of little interest to Scotland Yard. Meanwhile the<em> real</em> Mrs. Ricoletti slips away. Now comes the really clever part. Mrs. Ricoletti persuaded a cab driver, someone who knew her, to intercept her husband outside his favorite opium den. The perfect stage for a perfect drama. A perfect positive identification. The late Mrs. Ricoletti has returned from the grave and with a little skilled make-up and you have nothing less than the wrath of a vengeful ghost. The alley she disappeared down had a manhole set, one quick stomp of her shoe, and another accomplice uncovers it, allowing her down, to disappear before the nearest officer can spot her. There was only one thing left to do. All that remained was to substitute the real Mrs. Ricoletti for the corpse in the morgue. This time, should anyone attempt to identify her it would be positively, absolutely her."</p><p>"But why would she do that?" Mary asked, horrified at the idea of anyone setting the scene up in a way where it was the only conclusion for them to actually die in the end, "Die to prove a point?"</p><p>"Martyrs exist in every great cause," Jacqueline answered.</p><p>"Every war has suicide missions," Holmes agreed, "And, make no mistake, this <em>is</em> war. One half of the human race at war with the other," he took a few steps towards the robed figures, "The invisible army hovering at our elbow, attending to our homes, raising our children, ignored, patronized, disregarded, not allowed so much as <em>a vote</em>," he watched as the figures began to pull their hoods off to reveal all of them women, "But an army nonetheless, ready to rise up in the best of causes, to put right an injustice as old as humanity itself. So, you see, Watson," he turned to his friend, moving over to Jacqueline once more, "Mycroft was right. This is a war we <em>must</em> lose," he reached out and took Jacqueline's hand, pressing a kiss to it as though asking for her forgiveness, "As we should. As we deserve."</p><p>"Not all men," Jacqueline reassured him, seeing an apology in his eyes that he did not owe her, "Not my husband," she added, smiling at him so he would know he was the best of them, "I have <em>always</em> been your equal."</p><p>"<em>My better half</em>," Holmes corrected, for it was undeniably true in his opinion, "In <em>every</em> way. I would not be the man I am without you, Jacqueline. I cannot be me without you."</p><p>It did not escape Mary's notice, as she gazed at each of the women there, how they looked at Holmes in that moment, that wistfulness in their gaze that she had seen in the mirror herself. For a man to treat them not even as a superior but an <em>equal</em>, to hear them and appreciate them, to trust them and encourage them, to know what they were capable of and to celebrate it…the way Holmes did with his wife every day. She had seen it in them, the way that Holmes turned to her for her thoughts and opinions, how he included her in his investigations, how he never expected her to just sit off to the side twiddling her thumbs but instead would have her work with him by taking notes or making lists of evidence. And even then, she knew, she could see it in him, that he never felt it was enough, the freedom he gave his wife, because society as a whole would never treat Jacqueline the way he did, that she was limited, even still, by what others would allow of her.</p><p>It had taken Lestrade ages to accept that Jacqueline had a specialty of her own, a background in investigation that could assist the Yard. Many times, at first, he would disregard Jacqueline's opinions and suggestions, focusing entirely on Holmes, casting off Jacqueline's expertise as a flight of fancy from a nonsensical woman. Holmes had issued an ultimatum that he would cease to assist the Yard if Lestrade continued to disrespect his wife in such a manner, he had refused to speak with the man when he would come to him with a case that only really needed help to identify the criminal in question and nothing else , giving the stack of papers Lestrade would bring to his wife with a pointed look at the man that said he would allow the woman to look at it and make her statements for the both of them. Eventually she had shown herself to be an asset to Lestrade, but it would not have come to be if Holmes had not been so adamant and so supportive, giving his wife those opportunities to prove herself.</p><p>Not many women had such men in their lives.</p><p>And, now, standing before these women, Mary had the sneaking suspicion that Holmes would soon realize that there <em>were</em> women beyond his own wife who had to suffer the idiocy of small-minded men. Perhaps that was why he hadn't worked out this grand scheme earlier, because all other women blended into those who were not his wife and, therefore, were of no concern to him. Even SHE sometimes fell into that category despite being the wife of his best friend. Now, seeing them, seeing all of them, he could not help but realize how his gender had failed so many others beyond just Jacqueline.</p><p>"She was dying," Watson realized, murmuring beside her, not seeming to realize he'd said it out loud nor meant for it to be heard, but the acoustics of the hall made him sound louder than he was.</p><p>"Who was?" Holmes turned to look at him.</p><p>"Emelia Ricoletti. There were clear signs of consumption. I doubt she was long for this world."</p><p>"So she chose her own time," Jacqueline nodded, "To make eet count."</p><p>"Yes," Holmes nodded, following along, "She was already familiar with the secret societies of America and was able to draw on their methods of fear and intimidation to publicly, <em>very</em> publicly, confront Sir Eustace Carmichael with the sins of his past."</p><p>"He knew her out in the States," one of the women there spoke, not quite as deep as three of them were familiar hearing it, "Promised her everything," the woman stepped forward, to reveal Doctor Hooper, but without the false wig or mustache, "Marriage, position, and then he had his way with her and threw her over, left her abandoned and penniless."</p><p>"Hooper!" Holmes gaped at her, looking truly startled to see her as a woman and not the annoyance at the morgue he was familiar with.</p><p>"Holmes," Hooper greeted, not at all apologetic for the trickery, she had done what she needed to do to get ahead in a man's world even if it meant playacting as one of them.</p><p>"For the record, Holmes, she didn't have <em>me</em> fooled," Watson had to add…until he noticed one of the women in the gathering was his own maid, who had only recently complained that he didn't mention her in his works.</p><p>"Nor me," Jacqueline added.</p><p>"Yes, well, find anything that can escape your eyes," Holmes muttered.</p><p>Mary snorted, "You didn't notice because she wasn't Jacqueline."</p><p>Holmes had to concede to that, he did have a terrible time recognizing women who weren't his wife. It took him a full year before he could remember that the woman Watson was courting was called Mary. He could at least recall her face, ready to be deleted from his mind should the courtship or, later, marriage fall through, but it kept on.</p><p>"Emelia thought that she'd found happiness with Ricoletti," another woman with a faint Irish accent spoke, stepping up beside Hooper, "But he was a brute too. Emelia Ricoletti was our friend. You have no idea how that bastard treated her," she softened as she observed Holmes beside his wife, still holding the hand he had kissed, "You <em>really</em> couldn't," she mused, for it was clear to all of them that the man before them, for as callous as he appeared in real life, for as cold as he sometimes came across in Doctor Watson's stories, could <em>never</em> treat his wife anything close to horrible or neglectful.</p><p>"But…the Bride, Holmes," Watson frowned, "We saw her."</p><p>"Ze apparition?" Jacqueline guessed he meant that and not the physical one he had apparently seen before he fled guarding the window, for that one could be explained as one of the women there in costume, "Eet eez an old trick, I saw eet used in the theaters of France before," she added.</p><p>"The sound of breaking glass wasn't a window," Holmes elaborated, "It's called Pepper's Ghost. A simple reflection, in glass, of a living breathing person. Their only mistake was breaking the glass when they removed it. Look around you. This room is full of Brides. Once she had risen, anyone could be her."</p><p>"Copy cats," Jacqueline realized how her word had triggered this and Holmes' epiphany of the duplicate, copied body of Emelia.</p><p>"The avenging ghost, a legend to strike terror into the heart of any man with malicious intent, a specter to stalk those unpunished brutes whose reckoning is long overdue. A league of furies awakened. The women I…"</p><p>"Men," Jacqueline quietly interrupted, squeezing his hand, not about to let him put this all on himself.</p><p>He smiled at her, "The women whom <em>men</em> have lied to, betrayed, the women men have ignored and disparaged. Once the idea exists, it cannot be killed. This is the work of a single-minded person, someone who knew first-hand about Sir Eustace's mental cruelty. A dark secret, kept from all but her closest friends..." he looked over when one of the women stepped out from the gathering, dressed as the Bride, veil and all, "Including Emelia Ricoletti. The woman her husband wronged all those years before. If one disregards the ghost, there is only one suspect," he looked at the Bride, "Isn't that right, Lady Carmichael? One small detail doesn't quite make sense to me, however. Why engage me to prevent a murder you intended to commit?"</p><p>"Suspicion," Jacqueline answered when the Bride was silent, "She could not be a suspect eef she was trying to prevent eet happening."</p><p>"Brilliant," Holmes breathed, both for his wife at figuring it out and Lady Carmichael for thinking of it.</p><p>"Is it?" a voice that was distinctly <em>not</em> Lady Carmichael, or any woman, spoke, and the veil was lifted to reveal <em>Moriarty</em> beneath it…</p><p>~8~</p><p>
  <em>"Moriarty?" Leena laughed, flicking Sherlock on the nose as he chuckled and opened his eyes to look up at her, "Ridiculous, Sherwood."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"What?" he challenged, smiling up at her, "I had to make sure you were paying attention!"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"I always listen when you speak," she gave him a look, "You were starting to lose the plot early though. A sudden telegram? A de-sanctified church? Costumes? A gong? A GONG?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sherlock chuckled and sat up, a new determination in his voice, a surety that he had solved it, and proven Moriarty couldn't be back, "Mrs. Emelia Ricoletti. I need to know where she was buried."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"What, 120 years ago?!" Mycroft scoffed from where he'd been checking his emails on his phone and scheduling a complete drug test for his brother, wanting to be sure he hadn't somehow convince Leena to cover for him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Yes."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"There should be some sort of record for it," John remarked.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"That would take weeks to find, IF those records even exist," Mycroft rolled his eyes, "Even with my resources…"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Got it!" Mary called out, beaming as she looked at Leena's phone, "You need to send me a copy of this program, I am loving it."</em>
</p><p>~8~</p><p>
  <em>Leena did her best to hold in her laugh at how Sherlock was smirking at Mycroft's intense glare as they walked through the cemetery Mary claimed Emelia was buried in. Mycroft was meant to detain them, take them into a briefing, not allow them to 'wander free' but Sherlock would not quit and refused to leave the plane and threatened to move with Leena to France, leaving England to fend for itself against the return of Moriarty, unless Mycroft arranged this first. Having no other option, the man had done so.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Had Sherlock threatened a move to America, Mycroft would have certainly known he was bluffing. But, given there HAD been one time when he was 13 that she had been in France for two months due to some family obligations and he'd threatened to run away to France and literally did that, showing up on her doorstep not 24 hours later…Mycroft knew a threat to uproot to France was entirely possible.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"I don't think the extra officers are necessary, Mycroft," Leena remarked as she followed Sherlock, John and Mary behind her, Mycroft and Lestrade joining them, with a number of officers everywhere.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Sherlock is a flight risk," Mycroft muttered, not happy with this at all.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"I don't get it," John spoke as Sherlock began to look at the headstones, "How is this relevant?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Finding the body and perhaps even the double will mean he was right," Leena explained.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Because it could explain how Moriarty did it?" Mary followed along.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"But none of that really happened," John argued, "Solving the case, it was in his head."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"It's a possible solution," Leena argued, "The crime happened the same way, and it IS a logical plan. If he's right, he has a way to explain Moriarty appearing again, and also how Moriarty could truly be dead."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Here!" Sherlock called, finding it, cutting off any remarks John was about to make.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"The stone was erected by a group of her friends," Mary eyed the inscription for 'Emelia Ricoletti,' "Not by her family or her husband's…"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Would John's family chip in for a stone for you if you killed him?" Leena countered, it did make sense.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"I don't know what you think you'll find here," Mycroft huffed.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"I need to try," Sherlock argued, "Mrs. Ricoletti was buried here, but what happened to the other one, the corpse they substituted for her after the so-called suicide?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"They'd move it," John reasoned, "Of course they would."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"But where?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Well...not here."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"It would be the last place anyone would look for it, though," Leena reasoned.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"The conspirators had someone on the inside," Sherlock nodded, "They found a body, just like Molly Hooper found a body for me when I…" he was cut off by Leena pressing the tips of her fingers to his mouth.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"I would rather hear anything else in the world than you talking about how you faked your death again, Sherlock," she told him, serious, "I'd even take having to hear Mycroft having sex over that."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sherlock's face scrunched in disgust which set Leena laughing, but he nodded, agreeing not to bring it up. Instead he turned and began trying to dig at the grave with a shovel Lestrade had brought with them.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"You're not seriously gonna do this?" John eyed him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"It's why we came here," Sherlock shrugged, "I need to know."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"I don't," John huffed, "I am NOT helping with this. I draw the line at grave robbing. When you're ready to go to work, give me a call. I'm taking Mary home," he reached out to take is wife's arm.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"You're what?" Mary turned to him, her eyebrow raised.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Mary's taking me home," John amended instantly.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Better," she shot Leena a wink before the two of them turned to walk off, a promise she'd get John to calm down and a request to let her know how this went with a single half-blink.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Here," Leena moved forward, a shovel of her own in hand, "I'll help…"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"No!" Sherlock said quickly, so fast and sharp that she nearly jumped, but just gave him an unimpressed look, "Mycroft should."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She sighed, "Between the two of us, which has more experience helping you dig up a grave?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Lestrade and Mycroft both looked at her for that, their eyes slightly wide in surprise that she was admitting she'd actually helped him dig up a grave before.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"You're wearing a white coat," Sherlock said, sounding very much like he was grasping for straws, "It'll get dirty."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"I can take it off," she pointed out.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"You shouldn't," Sherlock spoke, giving her a look in return, something unreadable to anyone else in his expression, but Leena saw through it and sighed, "It's chilly," he added as an afterthought, "We've just got back, no use getting sick," he smirked at that last part.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She narrowed her eyes and shook her head as though silently scolding him, before she sighed and turned to hold the shovel out to Mycroft, giving him a pointed nod to his brother.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Mycroft looked between them, feeling like he'd missed something, but took the shovel anyway, because Leena was asking so politely…and he didn't want his shins kicked in for refusing, he was sure that the hairline fracture she'd caused that one time still hadn't healed properly, "Cherchez la femme," he murmured.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Leena crossed her arms, "Ne parlez pas français, Mycroft, vous semblez stupide."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sherlock snorted and the two Holmes brothers got to work.</em>
</p><p>~8~</p><p>
  <em>Hours had passed and the Holmes brothers had finally seemed to reach the six foot depth to the coffin of Emelia Ricoletti. Lestrade and his officers had set up portable lights all over the area to help in the dark, he'd even had an officer run out to get them some warm tea when it began to truly get chilly. Mycroft had tried to hand off the shoveling to Lestrade at some point, but refrained when Leena shot him a foul look. Her thoughts were cut off when Sherlock's latest move was met with the hallow thunk of the coffin.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sherlock looked up at them, before he and Mycroft got to work getting rid of the last of the dirt from the coffin, grunting as they grabbed it from the sides and managed to heft it up to the ground. Lestrade stepped over with a crowbar, wrenching it under one end of the coffin lid before handing it over to Sherlock to get the other side after he'd climbed out of the hole. Inside was a very rotted corpse, nearly entirely a skeleton by that point, worms everywhere, wearing a rotted version of a wedding dress.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Eww," Leena grimaced at the sight, looking away, not really wanting that image stuck in her mind for the rest of her life.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Mycroft, who had gotten out of the hole himself, turned to shine a torch on the corpse while Sherlock took a breath and forced himself to reach into the coffin, feeling around and under the body for the second one he suspected being there. It wasn't enough to find a physical body in the coffin, for all they knew, without proper DNA testing, it could be the duplicate and not Emelia, he had to find two bodies for his theory to be correct.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Oh dear," Mycroft huffed when that rooting about came up with nothing, "The cupboard is bare."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"They must have buried it underneath," Sherlock reasoned, "They must have buried it underneath the coffin."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He looked over when a shovel appeared next to his face to see Leena holding it out to him, "Then find it," she said simply.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He grinned, jumping to his feet and leaping into the hole once more, digging and tossing the earth to the side, searching for the duplicate.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Bad luck, Sherlock," Lestrade called down to him, when still nothing appeared, "Maybe they got rid of the body in another way."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"More than likely," Mycroft agreed.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"No," Leena shook her head, "They wouldn't risk someone else finding the body and working out the truth behind the ruse."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Exactly!" Sherlock called up to them.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Mycroft rolled his eyes, and Leena called HIM an enabler.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"At any rate," Mycroft called down to his brother, "It was a very long time ago. We do have slightly more pressing matters to hand, little brother. Moriarty, back from the dead?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sherlock ignored the man, continuing to dig even as it began to rain, creating a muddy mess within the grave. His shovel vibrated in his hand when it struck something hard in the dirt. He lifted it and began to shove the dirt nearby away, staring when he saw the beginnings of a skull staring at him from the mud. He spun around to call up to the others that he was right...and tripped on the mud, falling into the grave, his head slamming into the ground right beside the skull with a thud.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Sherlock!" Leena's gasping call was the last he heard as his vision went dark…</em>
</p><p>~8~</p><p>Holmes jolted up with a start, his hand flashing to the back of his head where he could swear he had hit a rock or something while he'd been digging a grave in…quite an odd time. Or was it an odd time?</p><p>As he straightened up and looked around, he was hit with the distinct feeling, a realization more so, that he was dreaming. The last he knew, he had been in a church, surrounded by women, and a dead man had appeared…which, admittedly, should have been a sign that he was dreaming for he knew Moriarty to be well and truly dead now that he knew Emelia Ricoletti could not have survived. Now, he was lying on the ground, on a ledge beside a roaring waterfall far too similar to the Reichenbach he had thrown Moriarty's body down.</p><p>His hand moved from the back of his head to his forehead, "I see," he murmured, nodding to himself, "Still not awake," he reasoned.</p><p>It was becoming clear to him now, these…dual lives he kept envisioning. One was real, one was a cognitive technique his wife had developed to help him imagine scenes playing out only, somewhere along the lines, it had blurred into a dream world of sorts. Which was where he was now.</p><p>Though…despite now being aware he was apparently in a dream, seeing his wife lying beside him, unconscious and far too close to the ledge, was enough to jolt him into action. Dream or not, he would never allow harm to come to his wife, real or imagined.</p><p>"Leena!" he scrambled over, reaching out to touch her cheek, his other hand on her shoulder to lightly shake her.</p><p>He didn't know how he'd fallen unconscious and ended up there, a sure sign of a dream how disjointed it was, but that Jacqueline was there with him was a relief. His mind, apparently, could not bear to have his wife so far even when he wasn't actively in control of it.</p><p>Thank the Lord.</p><p>"Locksley?" Jacqueline murmured as she slowly woke, blinking up at him and reaching out to touch his cheek, her fingertips moving along it to his hair, "Your hair eez wet."</p><p>He chuckled at her observation, they were both covered in a fine sheen of the mist from the waterfall, and he knew it must be playing havoc with his hair. It was always unruly and curly when he would wash it, before he could slick it back, but he knew his wife loved it and, even in such a dire situation as this, that she could find comfort in him meant everything to him. And so he leaned forward to press a kiss to her forehead…when another voice spoke out behind him.</p><p>"Aww, sweet."</p><p>They both looked over to see Moriarty standing there, a full moon behind him, illuminating the area. Holmes shot him a glare, reaching out a hand to help his wife up, keeping her more behind him and out of Moriarty's path for the man had a gun in his hand.</p><p>"Too deep, Sherlock," the man sighed, sounding bored and disappointed, "Way too deep. But congratulations. You'll be the first man in history to be buried in his own Mind Palace."</p><p>Holmes scoffed, "The setting's a shade melodramatic, don't you think?"</p><p>"For you and me?" Moriarty considered it, "Not at all."</p><p>"Sherwood," Jacqueline spoke quietly a little more beside him than he would have wanted, "HOW eez he here?"</p><p>"He's not," Holmes reassured her, "Moriarty's dead."</p><p>"Not in your mind," Moriarty smirked, enjoying how much he could taunt them, "I'll never be dead there. Imagine your brain is a hard drive," he began to step forward, Holmes not moving but moving his wife further behind him, "Well, say hello to the virus. This is how we end, you and I. Always here, always together."</p><p>Holmes shook his head, "You have a magnificent brain, Moriarty. I admire it. I concede it may be even be the equal of my own…"</p><p>Moriarty smiled, "I'm touched. I'm honored."</p><p>"But when it comes to the matter of unarmed combat on the edge of a precipice," Holmes smirked, "You're going in the water," he eyed the man, "Short-arse."</p><p>Moriarty lunged at him for the insult, reaching as though he wanted to jab at Holmes, only to stumble back with a hiss when Jacqueline, from the side and unnoticed by Moriarty's fixation on Holmes, moved and kicked him in one of his shins. Holmes used the distraction to rush forward, grabbing Moriarty and shoving him against the rock of the ledge wall.</p><p>"Run!" he called to Jacqueline.</p><p>But Moriarty then used HIS distraction to twist, managing to slam him into the wall instead, before kicking his foot out to send him to the ground.</p><p>"You think you're so big and strong, Sherlock!" Moriarty snarled, managing to get himself onto of Holmes and land a sound punch across his face, "Not with me!" and again, "I am your <em>WEAKNESS</em>!" and again, "I keep you <em>DOWN</em>!" and again, "Every time you <em>STUMBLE</em>, every time you <em>FAIL</em>, when you're <em>WEAK</em>…" and one more time, "I…AM…"</p><p>Before he suddenly fell to the side.</p><p>"So stupid," Jacqueline huffed behind him, panting, a very large rock in her hands that she'd slammed to the side of Moriarty's head to drop him, "If you zink I would <em>ever</em> run away when my husband eez being threatened!" she turned as Moriarty tried to struggle back to his knees, and used her own knee to hit him in the face, "Or zat he would ever face zomezing like zis alone!" Moriarty groaned, twisting on the ground and Jacqueline lifted the rock again, Moriarty actually cowering, but she let it go with one hand and pointed a warning finger at him, "Stay down!" she snapped, glaring, before she threw the rock over the ledge and hurried over to Holmes's side to help him sit up.</p><p>"Leena," Holmes breathed as Jacqueline pulled him into a tight hug, "I told you to run."</p><p>She scoffed in his ear, "Eet eez you and me, Sherwood," she pulled back to look at him, her hands cupping his cheeks, her eyes roving over his bruised and cut face, "Togezer, both of us, always."</p><p>"I wouldn't if I were you," the voice of Doctor Watson spoke, and the two looked over to see Moriarty had managed to stagger to his feet and appeared about to try and launch himself at them, only for Watson to stop him, standing there with his revolver in hand, aimed right at their enemy, "Professor, if you wouldn't mind stepping away from my friend. I do believe he finds your attention a shade annoying."</p><p>Holmes smirked, watching Moriarty stumble away before turning back to Jacqueline who pulled out a handkerchief to dab at his split lip, allowing his wife to tend to him now that Moriarty was well in hand.</p><p>"That's not fair!" Moriarty huffed, sounding far more petulant than a man who had gotten soundly throttled by a woman should, "There's two of you!"</p><p>"Three," Watson corrected, sending Jacqueline a wink, "There's always three of us. Don't you read 'The Strand?'" he gestured at the man, "On your knees, Professor," he waited till Moriarty did so, "Hands behind your head."</p><p>"Merci beaucoup, John," Jacqueline smiled at the man.</p><p>"De rien," Watson smirked, before his gaze turned to Holmes, "I think it's time you woke up, Sherlock," he gave the man a smile at his startled look, "I'm a storyteller. I know when I'm in one."</p><p>"Of course," Holmes remarked, knowing this was his mind's way of telling him the story had resolved itself, that it was time to wake. He had accomplished what his mind needed him to, he had learned Moriarty had not survived, that the only place he lived on was in memory, and even then, he would never have to face that alone, he had his wife and his friend beside him, "Of course you do, John."</p><p>"So what's he like? The other me, in the other place?"</p><p>"Smarter than he looks."</p><p>"Pretty damned smart, then."</p><p>He nodded, "Pretty damned smart."</p><p>"And me?" Jacqueline teased, another indication that it was coming to an end.</p><p>"Perfect," Holmes smiled at her, before leaning in to give her a gentle kiss.</p><p>Watson huffed when Moriarty began making disgusted noises and expressions, moving behind the kneeling man and, with a firm kick, sent him flying over the edge and down the waterfall.</p><p>Jacqueline pulled away with a soft smile, resting her forehead to her husband's, "Savez-vous comment vous réveiller?" she asked him gently.</p><p>"J'ai un plan," he reassured her, pressing a kiss to her knuckles before he stepped back to the edge of the waterfall.</p><p>"Are you sure?" Watson called.</p><p>"Of course," Holmes nodded, turning to face his wife and his friend, "I always survive a fall."</p><p>"But how?"</p><p>He smirked, "Elementary, my dear Watson."</p><p>He pulled the deerstalker off his head and tossed it to Jacqueline with a wink, before holding his arms out wide and allowing himself to fall backwards off the cliff, a smile blooming on his face with the knowledge that he was <em>right</em>, that he had solved it, and that Moriarty was most certainly dead and could <em>not</em> truly harm his family any longer…</p><p>~8~</p><p>
  <em>"Sherwood," Leena's gentle voice cut through the haze as Sherlock slowly woke up...to find himself on the plane once more, a bit dazed and confused as he could have sworn he'd tripped in a dug up grave only moments ago.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Hmm?" he stretched a bit, sitting up from the sofa where he'd been stretched out with his head on her lap, "What?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"You fell asleep," she laughed, "Mid-story. And it was at the good part too! You'd just cracked something to do with copy cats."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Did I?" he blinked a few times, before looking over to where John and Mary were only just entering the plane, Mycroft a few paces ahead of them. He could have sworn they had already gotten on the plane and interrupted him telling the story to Leena, but apparently he'd fallen asleep and dreamed that part of it. He glanced over at Mycroft who looked unamused, "Miss me?" he couldn't help but taunt, knowing it would annoy his brother even more than the fact that he'd fallen asleep within minutes of finding out 'Moriarty was alive' again as though it was boring and no concern.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Sherlock?" John paused when he caught how Mycroft was glaring at the man, "You alright?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Yes, of course I am," he frowned, eyeing them, "Why wouldn't I be?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"'Cause you look like you just ODed," Mary pointed out, "What?" she held up her hands, "He looks terrible, you have to admit."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"He hasn't slept much in the last week," Leena defended. He'd been so worried about whatever punishment Mycroft would have to inflict on them both that he'd fretted endlessly. If it hadn't been for the sorrow and solemn nature of their departure, how emotional it made everyone, she was sure John and Mary would have noticed that before they'd even gotten on the plane, but Sherlock held back, kept it all in, put on a strong front and only let himself show how truly tired he was once the plane had taken off, when it was just them, "You're lucky I got him to nap at any point instead of imbibe nothing but coffee. He always goes off like he's spiraled when he's living on caffeine."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Well then," Sherlock sniffed deeply, standing and holding out a hand to Leena to help her up, "Time to head to Baker Street, Moriarty's back," the way he said the last two words made Leena roll her eyes, he sounded like he was trying to use quotey fingers without actually using his fingers, he didn't believe it at all.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"I almost hope he is," Mycroft remarked dryly, catching the tone.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sherlock rolled his eyes this time, at his brother, "Come on, we have work to do," he took Leena's hand and began to head for the door.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Jackie," Mycroft called out, causing her to pause as Sherlock continued on, "Look after him, please."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"When do I not?" she asked.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Oi!" Sherlock poked his head back in, "What are you still doing here? Shouldn't you be off getting Leena and I a pardon or something, like a proper big brother?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>John and Mary exchanged a look, feeling as though they'd missed something, but turned to join Sherlock and Leena at the door, the woman winding a blue scarf around his neck.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Sherlock," John hesitated, "Explain. Moriarty's alive, then?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"I never said he was alive," Sherlock shook his head, "I said he was back."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"So he's dead," Mary confirmed.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Of course he's dead. He blew his own brains out. No one survives that."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"He was recounting the case of Emelia Ricoletti, an old case, where she did the same thing, just to prove that no one can come back from the dead," Leena said, "Must have solved it too, he fell asleep in the middle of it. He never does that unless a case is so obvious and boring anyone could work it out."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Moriarty IS dead," Sherlock confirmed, "No question. But more importantly, I know exactly what he's going to do next," he gestured at the stairs down from the plane, allowing John and the very pregnant Mary to go first before he and Leena followed.</em>
</p><p>~8~</p><p>"Flying machines?" Watson asked, a scoff in his voice as he sat in his armchair of 221B, staring at Holmes as he looked out the window, Jacqueline and Mary over by the fireplace, examining a scrap of paper Mary had found on another assignment from Mycroft that she wanted analyzed, all of them listening to a story Holmes had come up with of a bizarre dream he'd had shortly after they had solved the case of Emelia Ricoletti and had gathered to discuss how to publish it in the Strand, it had devolved rather quickly as Holmes's dream had begun right where the case had ended, at the Church, "These, er, telephone contraptions…what sort of lunatic fantasy is that?"</p><p>"It was simply my conjecture of what a future world might look like, and how you and I might fit inside it," Holmes remarked, "From a drop of water, a logician should be able to infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara."</p><p>"Or a Reichenbach."</p><p>"'ave you written up ze case yet, John?" Jacqueline turned to him, having given Mary all she could see in the message.</p><p>"Yes," he nodded with a grin.</p><p>"Modified to put it down as one of my rare failures, of course?" Holmes guessed, they had all agreed on that at least, that they could not reveal the truth of who was behind the Ghost Bride murders or the entire sacrifice behind it, the entire movement of it, would be for nothing.</p><p>"Of course."</p><p>"'The Adventure of…the Invisible Army,'" Holmes suggested, "'The League of Furies?' 'The Monstrous Regiment.'"</p><p>"How about 'The Abominable Bride?'" Mary suggested.</p><p>Watson grinned, reaching out a hand to his wife, "I rather like that one."</p><p>Holmes, however, grimaced, moving to sit in his chair, "A trifle lurid."</p><p>"It'll sell," Watson remarked, "It's got proper murders in it, too."</p><p>"You're the expert," Holmes shrugged.</p><p>"As for your own tale…it sounds a trifle fanciful."</p><p>"Zings cannot advance without someone imagining ze impossible," Jacqueline defended.</p><p>"Yes," Holmes hummed, "Perhaps such things could come to pass. In any case, I know I would be very much at home in such a world," he looked over at Jacqueline as she came to sit on the arm of the chair, "So long as you were there with me, my dear."</p><p>"Flatterer," Jacqueline chuckled, leaning down to press a kiss to his forehead, only for him to tilt his head to capture her lips with his own.</p><p>~8~</p><p>
  <em>Leena sighed as she and Sherlock made their way down the steps of the plane, her arm linked through his, "As much as I liked the story," she began, "What really brought it on?" she asked, knowing he could have worked it all out on his own without breathing a word, yet he'd launched, not just into a tangent, but sounded more like he was telling her an actual story.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sherlock glanced at her, "You know," he shrugged, a small smile on his face, "I thought I should get some practice in."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He laughed when she rolled her eyes but smiled, and looked down the steps as they neared the bottom to see John and Mary standing there, waiting for their next adventure.</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>We've now concluded the Christmas Special :) I hope you enjoyed this version of it :)</p><p>I know there were a few key differences between the show and this chapter. For one, Holmes doesn't envision Moriarty breaking into 221B and conversing with him. With Leena being there and her very clear moves to prevent Sherlock doing any kind of drug, I couldn't see it playing out the way it was portrayed in the show, as a bad trip due to the drugs he took. With the relationship he's built up with his wife, I thought it would be more in line for him to be discussing the case with her and getting her thoughts than conjuring up Moriarty. I thought it would fit the narrative better, given how Sherlock empathizes with the women later, to have him just having a normal, domestic moment with his wife and partner ;)</p><p>There wasn't a hospital scene where Sherlock wakes up from seeming to overdose in the modern era, again because Leena has kept him on the straight and narrow and, with her cognitive technique, which sort of modified the Mind Palace concept, he didn't need drugs to immerse himself in that imagining of events. Which also meant that most of the 'flashbacks' were more a lucid dream of sorts, that sort of ended up becoming a complete dream when Sherlock fell asleep in the middle of telling it lol. So the first time we see John, Mary, and Mycroft enter the plan was around when Sherlock fell asleep and he dreamed being interrupted. When he woke up the last time, to the three coming onto the plane, that was the real part ;)</p><p>The Holmes who wakes up to face down Moriarty also didn't need the ghost of him spelling it out that that world wasn't real and was a dream, because the Sherlock who was dreaming it was more aware that it had been him imagining it on purpose. Falling unconscious the way he had, his mind sort of subconsciously created a mad situation where he could finally confront Moriarty and prove he was dead, but in a way to make sure he understood it was a dream because there was no logical way for it to go from the church to the waterfall ;)</p><p>I tried to allude to the multiple dreams with the title, with there being one dream of just the past case, one of the 'modern' world, and one of him confronting Moriarty :)</p><p>I hope the changes made sense and fit with the story version of the episode :) </p><p>Translations:</p><p>Mal de tete terrible - A terrible headache<br/>Cherchez la femme - look for the woman<br/>Ne parlez pas français, Mycroft, vous semblez stupide. - Don't speak French, Mycroft, you sound stupid.<br/>Merci beaucoup - Thank you very much.<br/>De rien - You're welcome.<br/>Savez-vous comment vous réveiller? - Do you know how to wake up?<br/>J'ai un plan - I have a plan.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. The Six Thatchers: Hamish</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Just a tiny little warning, there's going to be a bit of a mention of birth happening. Nothing very graphic, but a little more detail than what we saw in the episode of what might have been happening in the backseat with Mary that had them all pulling over at that exact point. So if that's not something you want to glimpse, I would say to skip the part of their mad rush to the hospital from the point where Sherlock goes "Oh my god!" to the end of that scene ;) Again, nothing too graphic, but a more pointed and obvious statement of what's happening than what we guess at in the episode ;)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Leena rubbed her head as she sat beside Sherlock in the Cabinet Office Mycroft had secreted her and Sherlock away to, the man standing before a small council of three, informing them about how their case, murdering Magnussen, was going to be classified for at least 100 years.</p><p>"What you're about to see is classified beyond top secret," Mycroft began what Leena was sure was meant to be a very serious briefing, Sherlock was making it anything but with how he was fidgeting beside her and trying not to grin while trying to type away on his phone without his brother noticing, which was no small feat, "Is that quite clear?" he looked at the panel of three, at Lady Smallwood, Sir Edwin, and another woman with a notebook and pen on her lap. He eyed the woman with the pad more pointedly, "Don't minute any of this," he warned, waiting till the woman set down her items on her lap before continuing.</p><p>Footage began to play on a projector, cut together images of the events that happened at Appledore.</p><p>"Once beyond these walls, you must never speak of it," Mycroft continued, "A D-notice has been slapped on the entire incident. Only those within this room, code names Antarctica, Langdale, Porlock, and Love, will ever know the whole truth."</p><p>Leena elbowed Sherlock slightly when the faint clicking of his typing on the phone could be heard in the silence that followed. He just shot her a grin and went right back to typing.</p><p>"As far as everyone else is concerned, going to the Prime Minister and way beyond, Charles Augustus…" Mycroft suddenly turned to Sherlock, the tapping intentionally loud now, "…are you <em>tweeting</em>?!"</p><p>"…no?" Sherlock offered, looking petulantly guilty and trying to cover his phone even when the sound of the tweet posting rang out.</p><p>"Well, that's what it looks like!" Mycroft huffed.</p><p>"Of course I'm not tweeting. Why would I be tweeting?"</p><p>"Give me that!" Mycroft snatched the phone out of Sherlock's hand even as Sherlock put up a 'fight' to keep it, though it was clear to Leena he really wasn't putting any true effort into it.</p><p>"What?" Sherlock huffed, "No. Get off. What are you doing? <em>Get off</em>. What…Leena tell him to stop!"</p><p>"Oh this is my childhood all over again," Leena sighed, "Keep it up and there will only be one!" she warned Sherlock, who instantly let go of the phone into Mycroft's hand to frown at her.</p><p>"'Back on terra firma,'" Mycroft read the tweets he'd been putting up.</p><p>"Mycroft, is that necessary?" Leena sighed.</p><p>"'Free as a bird.'"</p><p>"God, you're such a spoilsport," Sherlock muttered, before turning to Leena, "Maybe you have a point…"</p><p>Mycroft, though, was quite done with is brother's antics, "Will you take this matter seriously, Sherlock?!"</p><p>"I AM taking it seriously," Sherlock rolled his eyes, absently taking Leena's hand, "What makes you think I'm not taking it seriously?"</p><p>"'Hashtag OhWhatABeautifulMorning,'" Mycroft read the last one.</p><p>Leena couldn't help the snort at that part, "You're taking it a bit far, Sherwood," she told him, patting his hand holding hers with her other hand.</p><p>"Am I?" he smirked, kissing her hand, before he turned to his brother, "Look, not so long ago I was on a mission that meant certain death, my death and the death of my wife, not that either of us would let it get that far," he added to Leena, before turning back to Mycroft, "And now I'm back, in a nice warm office with my big brother and my wife and…are those ginger nuts?" he spotted a plate on the table before the panel and eagerly leapt to his feet to walk over to the cookies.</p><p>"Oh, God," Mycroft huffed.</p><p>"Love ginger nuts," Sherlock mumbled, grabbing a handful and moving back to the chairs to hand Leena a few with a wink, "Ginger," he repeated.</p><p>Leena shook her head fondly at him and took one from him to munch on, knowing exactly why he'd gone for them.</p><p>"Our doctor said you were <em>clean</em>," Lady Smallwood remarked dryly.</p><p>"He is," Leena promised, though she could understand why they seemed of the impression he wasn't. He <em>was</em> acting quite erratically, and not even Mycroft knew why.</p><p>"No need for stimulants now," Sherlock grinned widely at Leena, before trying to school his features into one of seriousness when he faced his brother, "I have work to do!"</p><p>The crunching noise he made when he ate his own cookie didn't quite fit with it though.</p><p>"You're high as a kite!" Sir Edwin accused.</p><p>"Natural high," Sherlock defended, "I assure you. Totally natural. I'm just...glad to be aliiiiiive!" he began to sing a bit, which earned a laugh from Leena.</p><p>"You're being completely ridiculous," Leena told him, "Honestly, it's a bit shocking. I didn't think you'd react quite like<em> this</em>…"</p><p>"React to what?" Mycroft demanded, finally understanding that <em>something</em> had happened that was causing Sherlock to act like an excited child and it was irritating him to no end.</p><p>Leena sighed, "I threw up on the plane."</p><p>Mycroft frowned, "But you never throw up on planes," he stated, while she worked in America, for the BAU, they were constantly travelling by plane, she'd never had any issues before with being sick and... "Oh."</p><p>Sherlock grinned smugly at Mycroft when his brother worked it out exactly WHY Leena had thrown up.</p><p>"And you're…pleased?" Mycroft almost sneered at the thought.</p><p>Sherlock narrowed his eyes, "<em>Yes.</em>"</p><p>"Huh," Mycroft made a noise, almost displeased.</p><p>Leena turned to the small panel, "Bit of food poisoning," she offered to them, because honestly it was not <em>any</em> of their business what was going on, "Lingering nausea," she added, holding up the remaining ginger nuts, for ginger was good with nausea, "Sherwood is quite pleased it wasn't anything more worrying."</p><p>The Holmes brothers were too clever to not work out why she threw up, Sherlock certainly hadn't wasted any time in convincing her that was why, though she was going to wait till a physical test from a real doctor before she announced it to anyone else.</p><p>"What shall we do next?" Sherlock began to change the subject once more, gleaming from Leena's words that she wanted to keep their discovery private, "You," he pointed to the elderly secretary, "What's your name?"</p><p>"Um, Vivian," the woman answered.</p><p>"What would you do, Vivian?"</p><p>"Pardon?"</p><p>"Well, it's a lovely day. Go for a stroll? Make a paper airplane? Have an ice lolly?" the woman moved to answer, but Sherlock cut her off, "Oh, why am I asking <em>you</em>? You're not my wife. Leena!" he turned to her, "What would you do?"</p><p>"Honestly, I very much miss my bed right now," Leena remarked. She had told John and Mary that Sherlock hadn't slept much the last week, neither had she for that matter. She always felt the need to be awake when he was like that, because his mind could become too active and race too much. She really was looking forward to having a nice lie in.</p><p>"Boring!" Sherlock grumbled.</p><p>Leena smirked, leaning in to whisper, though she didn't doubt the others could hear in the small room, "I never said what I plan to do in the bed...or who with," she gave him a pointed look.</p><p>"Alright, time to go, you've got this handled, Mycroft," Sherlock cleared his throat, getting up to leave.</p><p>"Mr. Holmes!" Lady Smallwood huffed.</p><p>"Yes?" both Holmes brothers replied, to the amusement of Leena, who slowly stood, popping the last bit of her ginger nut into her mouth.</p><p>"We do need to get on," Lady Smallwood finished.</p><p>"Yes, exactly what we were doing," Sherlock agreed, reaching out to take Leena's hand and leave.</p><p>"Sherlock!" Mycroft yelled at him, "<em>Sit down</em>."</p><p>Sherlock turned to his brother and crossed his arms, remaining standing for a moment or two, before gesturing at his brother to 'get on with it.'</p><p>Mycroft shook his head in exasperation and clicked a button on a remote he was holding to restart the footage. It was very clearly doctored to those who had been there, but to those who had not, or those who had not seen the original footage only moments ago, it appeared to show Sherlock confronting Magnussen, aiming his gun at the man while helicopters flew close. The image shifted to a headcam from an operative, another running in front of them just after Leena had grabbed Sherlock's arm and gun herself, the image was obscured only a single second, but the next shot showed what appeared to be Leena pushing the gun down and a gunshot ringing out from somewhere else. Both Leena and Sherlock knew they'd only lowered the gun <em>after</em> they'd shot Magnussen, so it now appeared as though one of the operatives had shot Magnussen for two small red dots had been shopped onto the image of the man's head, as though he was a target.</p><p>"I see," Sherlock sighed, "Who is supposed to have shot him, then?"</p><p>"Some over-eager squaddie with an itchy trigger finger, that's who," Sir Edwin remarked.</p><p>"That's not what happened at all."</p><p>"It is now," Mycroft declared.</p><p>"Remarkable," Lady Smallwood watched the footage as it repeated, "How did you do it?"</p><p>"We have some very talented people working for us," Sir Edwin answered, "If James Moriarty can hack every TV screen in the land, rest assured we have the tech to, er...doctor a bit of security footage."</p><p>"That is now the official version, the version anyone we want to will see," Sir Edwin continued.</p><p>"No need to go to the trouble of getting some sort of official pardon," Lady Smallwood nodded, "You and your wife are off the hook, Mr. Holmes. You're home and dry."</p><p>"Ok," Sherlock nodded, ignoring Mycroft's firm and expectant expression, "Cheers!" he hurried over to grab his and Leena's coats, eager to be anywhere his brother wasn't, because the longer they stayed there the more everyone else might expect him to <em>thank</em> the man, and there was no way in any level of hell he would thank the Bane of his Existence for anything.</p><p>"Obviously there's unfinished business," Lady Smallwood called, stopping his efforts, "Moriarty."</p><p>"I told you," Sherlock tried to speak through a mouthful of ginger nuts Leena had offered and fed him while he buttoned up her peacoat, "Moriarty's dead."</p><p>"You say he filmed that video message before he died."</p><p>"Yes," Leena nodded, giving him a moment to finish his chewing.</p><p>While he may not have explained every detail of what he thought Moriarty had done, it really did not take a genius to work out the most likely scenario given the story he'd launched into about Emelia Ricoletti and how those who knew her had continued the 'mystery' in her name. Someone was using Moriarty's death to give him one last hurrah, so to speak. A man in a field such as crime, there was only one end for such a man, death, anyone with half a brain would know Moriarty would eventually die or be killed, it wasn't a leap to think the man himself would put systems in place to do one final heist of sorts after he'd died.</p><p>"You also say you know what he's going to do next. What does that mean?"</p><p>"Perhaps that's all there is to it," Sir Edwin suggested, pointing at Sherlock, "Perhaps he was just trying to frighten you."</p><p>Sherlock scoffed, both at the notion that the message would frighten him and that Moriarty would do something for that reason, "No, no. He would never be that disappointing."</p><p>"That was never his endgame either," Leena agreed, thinking on the profile she'd made for him and how accurate it turned out to be, "He's a planner. That's all. Whatever this was, it's something he preplanned."</p><p>"Something that would take effect if he never made it off that rooftop alive," Sherlock nodded, "Posthumous revenge."</p><p>"Not the sort," Leena shook her head, "He'd only want revenge if he was there to enjoy it or inflict it himself. This is more to one up you, test you, get the last laugh."</p><p>Sherlock considered her profile of him, "Posthumous <em>game</em>," he grinned.</p><p>"We brought you back to deal with this," Lady Smallwood cut in, "What are you going to do?"</p><p>"Wait."</p><p>"Wait?!"</p><p>"Of course wait," he repeated again, "I'm the target. Targets wait. Look, whatever's coming, whatever he's lined up, I'll know when it begins. I always know when the game is on. D'you know why?"</p><p>"Why?" she huffed.</p><p>Leena smiled, "Because he loves it."</p><p>Sherlock winked at her, taking her hand to finally lead her out of that room.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Sherlock was ecstatic as he returned to 221B to find piles of letters from fans of his blog with 'unsolvable' mysteries of their own to tempt him. He stabbed the dagger he kept on the mantle through the papers, beaming, "If this gets any better, I'm gonna get two knives!" he turned around to see Leena behind him, holding up something in a black case.</p><p>"Thought you might," she shrugged with a smirk when he grabbed a handle sticking out of the case and yanked, pulling a second dagger out of the sheath and stabbing it into the mantel too, ready for the next influx of papers.</p><p>John shook his head at the two, typing away at his laptop by the table, '221Back!' he began the blog, giving their fans some updates about a few cases, and about his life too. He looked up at where Mary, quite pregnant for she was due in only a few weeks, was standing by the window, smiling at them all back together.</p><p>"It pays to advertise," John called to Sherlock as the man moved to sit down in his favorite armchair, Leena heading over to Mary.</p><p>"I can't believe it," Mary remarked, positively beaming at Leena, "I was <em>joking</em>, you know."</p><p>Leena rolled her eyes, letting Mary put her hand on her stomach. Mary had once remarked that she and Sherlock needed to 'get on with it,' because her child needed to have a playmate. Apparently, Sherlock had taken that more seriously than they realized, because...she <em>was</em> pregnant. Four weeks along, right at the onset of nausea, which was what tipped Sherlock off about her state because she really didn't ever get sick on planes, much like how he'd known by Mary's changed taste in wine at her wedding. But while Mary was ready to pop before the month was out, SHE still had quite a ways to go yet.</p><p>"Not far behind," she teased Mary.</p><p>Sherlock grinned smugly behind them, though Leena didn't need to see his face to know he was doing it, he was very proud of himself for this.</p><p>It…honestly, it <em>did</em> surprise her, how happy he'd been when he'd deduced her on the plane, one of the very, <em>very</em> rare times he had ever done that to her. She didn't profile him, he didn't deduce her. But when she had thrown up, which was very unlike her, he couldn't stop himself from trying to deduce what was wrong because if it was poison he needed to know what it was and who he needed to kill.</p><p>Surprisingly, it wasn't that at all and a quick hop to the hospital after their briefing had confirmed it.</p><p>For a brief moment she'd thought it was just his wishful thinking, that this would be the one time he was wrong. But no, the tests confirmed it. She may or may not have burst out laughing when the doctor gave the results, did it so hard she'd nearly started crying. She could only say 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I don't know why I'm laughing. This is the absolute worst time this could have ever happened,' before laughing again. It really <em>was</em> the worst time, her husband was a target of a dead Moriarty, some danger was on the horizon, and they didn't know when or how it would happen, and now she was pregnant too.</p><p>At least Sherlock hadn't been angry with her laughter, he'd seemed rather pleased.</p><p>She wouldn't lie and say she hadn't noticed some odd things here and there over the years when it came to Sherlock and the idea of children, of starting a family one day. She'd found a few odd web searches, baby names, girl names, symptoms, and signs of pregnancy…back just before he'd faked his death. Then after. She'd thought it was because he suspected Mary was pregnant, but then Mary shot him and it flew out of her mind. Until after the check in with the doctor, the ride home in the cab, when he was almost buzzing with excitement and had let slip that he thought their daughter would be beautiful. She'd said it could be a boy, but he'd been adamant it was a girl, and let slip that he thought so because 'he'd seen her' in his Mind Palace just after Mary shot him. He'd had to explain that he pictured them having a little girl, getting a shaggy black dog to name Blackbeard, being a family together, to cope with the shock of the bullet wound and, because of that, he was 100 percent sure it was a girl, no ifs ands or buts about it.</p><p>Sherlock Holmes was good with obsession, she'd give him that, he'd mastered the art of having them, and when he latched onto something, he did <em>not</em> let it go. He wanted to start a family, even more so after he'd nearly died of that wound, after the two years of never knowing if he'd be able to be with her again. He wanted everything with her, and now that she was pregnant, he was beyond smug and pleased he would finally be getting it. She found herself almost hoping it would be a girl so he could have all that he'd ever wanted.</p><p>Sherlock, to his credit, was looking back at her with the same fond hope she had glanced over at him with. He had to take a moment, looking at his wife standing beside John's wife, with John at the table, to just take it in. He had a wife, he was going to have a child, he had a best friend who had a wife who was also going to have a child. Never in his life did he <em>ever</em> let himself hope to have something like this, to have Leena as his wife, to have a family with her, nor to have a best mate who wasn't Leena and have that man be happy too. He knew the sort of person he was, difficult to love and get on with, for so long he'd been so on edge that Leena would come to her senses and break ties with him. But seeing her there, married to him, his for life, and <em>happy</em> about having a child wit him…</p><p>He finally felt like he could<em> breathe</em>, he finally felt like…maybe…he <em>deserved</em> this happiness.</p><p>He really hadn't been lying when he'd said he was glad to be alive as an excuse for his beyond chipper behavior, which he admitted was out of character for him.</p><p>It was funny, in a way, how people just assumed he had to be high or on drugs if he displayed any emotion beyond cold hard facts.</p><p>Still, he <em>was</em> happy, he was finally, <em>finally</em> happy, about to have everything he'd ever let himself think about wanting for himself the brief second or two a year it snuck up on him. Really, the only thing missing was a dog…a Blackbeard.</p><p>"So, what about Moriarty, then?" Mary spoke.</p><p>And Sherlock came crashing back to earth. Yes, he supposed there was that too. He could do without that threat looming over his family. He blinked and looked at John and Mary a moment. Family, yes, they were family too. He'd felt the sentiment for a while, but he'd never actively considered them to be so till now.</p><p>Moriarty was dead, he was certain of it, but he also knew someone out there was carrying out plans for the man in the event of his death. That made it harder, because he didn't know this person and he couldn't tell if they would deviate or make matters easier or worse. And the fact that this person was someone Moriarty trusted to see the plans through could spell even more trouble. That was something he needed to deal with, sooner than later. Mary was about ready to pop and Leena would be too in a matter of months. He made a lot of enemies, but he was reasonably sure, between the four of them, he could handle those individuals. Moriarty posed a different problem. Once his plan was dealt with, he could feel more secure in the safety and life he was making for his family.</p><p>"Oh, Sherwood has a plan," Leena waved off Mary's concern with a smile.</p><p>Sherlock stood, momentarily stunned by the sight of her illuminated by the sun and sky through the window, the ease with which she cast off the worry.</p><p>After what Moriarty had forced him to do, his death, his disappearance, the nightmares he knew Leena still had about his fall, the nightmares she had after Mary shot him, he had expected her to be a little more frantic and worried. But, a part of him told him, that was a little ridiculous to expect. Leena trusted him, like no one else did, and she<em> knew</em> him. She knew he would go to the ends of the earth to solve this and keep them safe, she knew he'd succeed. Even when he might not be sure how he'd do it, she had all the faith in the world that he would.</p><p>She felt safe with him, even now.</p><p>And that meant the world to him.</p><p>Before he even realized it, he'd crossed the room and placed a gentle kiss to her forehead, "I do," he murmured, promising her in a way the others would never realize, that he <em>was</em> being careful, that he would be sure, he would handle this case unlike any case he'd had before…because the stakes were that much higher for her this time, there was so much more to lose if he failed. She would lose not only her husband, but her child could lose its father, and he would never, ever allow that. He turned to Mary, a hand coming to rest absently on Leena's back, his thumb stroking up and down her spine and a bit to the side, as though to massage her back though it wasn't hurting yet, unlike Mary who was pressing a fist to the back of her own, "I'm going to monitor the underworld," he began, "Every quiver of the web will tell me when the spider makes his move."</p><p>He pulled out his mobile and brought up Twitter, '#221BringIt!' he typed.</p><p>Until Moriarty's plans began to unfold, he'd remembered, there was a truly large underworld and crime problem in London. He'd have to do something about that, the Yard was rubbish as it was. He was not going to let his daughter…child, his CHILD, be brought into a world running rampant with crime.</p><p>Lestrade usually came to him for help, well this time <em>he'd</em> bring the help to Lestrade. Anything and everything clients brought to him or he found on his own, he'd solve and do away with. And, maybe, if he weeded out the criminals, it would make it harder for Moriarty to get to any of them and use them.</p><p>"Basically your 'plan' is just to sit there solving crimes like you always do?" John glanced up.</p><p>"Awesome, isn't it?!" Sherlock beamed.</p><p>"Well then," Leena smiled and moved over to the mantle. She was actually…very pleased with this plan. It was…normal. Which she desperately needed after the last few years. She'd solved some crimes with the Yard, when she could, solved some other freelance work, when Sherlock had been 'dead' for 2 years. And she had delighted in having him back, to have him deducing things and experimenting and rambling, even insulting people.</p><p>But, there was something subdued about it lately.</p><p>He'd come back just as John and Mary were getting engaged. There had really been one main criminal and a bomb threat, before he was putting much of his efforts to helping the Watsons plan their wedding. He would turn down cases, or solve them as quickly as he could, or not take John with him, though he always took HER. It just…it wasn't the same. And then he'd got shot and John and Mary were having a tiff, and he'd been trying to help them both mend. He'd been so focused on Magnussen and bringing the man down that it hadn't left much time for other crimes, like the good old days.</p><p>Now, knowing Mary could handle herself as well as any of them, it opened the door to getting back to normal, perhaps a bit of a new and improved normal. She wouldn't be the only woman, they each had different skills that could help solve crimes and make a difference.</p><p>Sherlock, assessing the scene and the victim. Her, profiling the criminal. John, being the doctor and saving lives. And now Mary…well, once she popped…the protection and logistics expert.</p><p>As a team, she had no doubt they could be unbeatable.</p><p>And, right now, with the threat of Moriarty's final game looming, with both her and Mary being pregnant, she really just wanted to get back to that old-fashioned criminal investigation. She could really use the distraction it would provide from internally freaking out about how she was pregnant and her husband was still a massive target from a psychopath trying to put a hit on him from beyond the grave.</p><p>Yes, a distraction would do nicely right now.</p><p>So she reached out and ripped the first paper off the stabbed stack, turning to smile at Sherlock, "Let's begin."</p><p>~8~</p><p>Leena had never before thought that 2 weeks could move so quickly nor that it could be so busy. Granted, it could have been because her mind kept going back to the 2 years waiting for Sherlock to resurface, time dragged on far too slowly in that case and when he did return, she took time to savor each and every moment with him so it never felt like it had flown by.</p><p>Sherlock had set his mind to catching as many criminals and solving as many mysteries as he could, it seemed. The last weeks had been full of nonstop cases. She was quite happy with it though, it…it helped, seeing Sherlock in action that way, assisting with her profiles. It was just what she needed to give herself time to process everything in the quiet moments they found in between. She was finally starting to notice other signs of pregnancy, normal ones that any person would see. Change in taste, some odd cravings here and there, her nose had grown bionic to the point where Sherlock had had to put up a plastic curtain in the kitchen to keep the smells of his experiments from wafting through the flat. They'd compromised on that as well, she burned a few scented candles to help cover the smells that did escape.</p><p>Mrs. Hudson had been very understanding of letting her use her kitchen instead of the one in the flat given how it had been taken over as a mini lab. It had never been a problem before, cooking around the lab, but the smells got to her more now. Though Mrs. Hudson at times refused to let her cook, telling her to rest and take it easy and she would bring some food up.</p><p>Reminding the woman she wasn't her housekeeper only resulted in a hush and a wink.</p><p>She had been one of the very lucky ones, it appeared, for while she felt nauseous some times, she hadn't fully borne the brunt of the sickness. It appeared the plane was the only time she'd really thrown up. She was very grateful for it, if she'd had to deal with the smells in the lab and the smell of vomit she'd have had to ask Sherlock to stop his work and she never wanted to do that, take something he loved from him, especially not when she loved it too.</p><p>It had been quite funny though, because there had been one client who came to see them, sobbing her eyes out, and she'd gone to get her some water from the fridge. Sherlock hadn't done any experimenting in a few days and left a window open in the back to air it out so she'd felt it was safe to enter the kitchen. She'd opened it to see a severed arm lying across the top shelf, shrugged, and grabbed the water…unknowing that the woman had seen it and begun to hurl into her handbag at the sight. Sherlock had looked at her like she hung the moon when she'd walked back, unperturbed by his shenanigans, and handed the woman the water.</p><p>He claimed it was a sign that their child was destined to be a detective or a profiler or something if it didn't get sick at the sight of a severed arm.</p><p>She reminded him she didn't even think the baby had developed eyes by then, it was barely more than a month along.</p><p>That had only been the tip of the iceberg for clients.</p><p>A woman had come to see the four of them about how her husband had died at sea, how he had drowned, but an autopsy revealed his lungs were full of sand.</p><p>Sherlock deemed it superficial, half distracted while he texted and tweeted Lestrade for other deductions on his cases.</p><p>Another client, a very pale man who was bleeding quite profusely from a wound on his hand, brought in a bag filled with ice for Sherlock to look at. He had gone a bit too in depth with it, using Mars Binoculars to examine the thing inside it.</p><p>It took Leena all of one glance to warn the man that he'd brought them the wrong thumb, for he'd severed his thumb in an altercation with another man and both lost a thumb. He'd grabbed one and hadn't known if it was his so he'd gone to Sherlock instead of the hospital. John had instantly jumped into doctor-mode and urged the man to call an ambulance while Sherlock continued to look at the thumb.</p><p>Sadly, the man was living with 9 fingers now.</p><p>One other client brought them photographs of one of their friends…spotted in two places at the same time, only for him to be murdered in one of the places. John had thought it might be a case involving twins, Sherlock was quite sure it was never twins, Mary had bet that it was twins too.</p><p>She'd won ten quid off that.</p><p>A man whose cardiac medication was causing amnesia, to the point where the man had strangled his own brother and not remembered he'd done it, which had been a bit heartbreaking to divulge to the man since he was rather sweet. A bit of a cognitive interview from her and the man was bawling his eyes out and calling the police on himself. It wasn't always as hard as that one had been.</p><p>There had been a time Sherlock even solved two cases at the same time. She'd been sitting beside him on the arm of his chair, his laptop on her lap while he held a face chat with someone on his phone. That had been an interesting time. Detective Hopkins arrested a man named Wilson while Detective Dimmock was instructed to look inside someone's lymph nodes. She'd had to explain to Dimmock, since Sherlock was busy explaining why Wilson had done it (no one ever suspects the canary trainer, but Leena's profiles have never been wrong before), that the limbless torso that had been found in a trunk in Waterloo station's luggage office had tattoos on it, and therefore the ink used would still be left in trace amounts in the lymph nodes of the armpits, it would identify the poison initially used which would match items found in one of the two suspects homes.</p><p>John and Mary had been both impressed and a little concerned for Sherlock and his single minded focus on solving the crimes. Something John said about how he was spinning too many plates triggered an epiphany and Sherlock was rushing off with his phone to call Lestrade about how 'the place was spinning!' and how it solved the crime. SHE had found it very sweet how Mary and John worried, the two had taken the opportunity to make sure <em>she</em> was doing alright. Even though she was so early in her own pregnancy, they wanted to make sure Sherlock wasn't ignoring or neglecting her.</p><p>A quick trip to the second bedroom, the one John used to use, showed them a partially constructed nursery. All Sherlock's doing. He'd been trying to keep it secret from her, working on it when she would go have lunch with Mary or stop by the Yard to check in with Lestrade. He liked to think he was surprising her with this, but she knew him too well to know that he would do all he could to make things easier for her, to have her not worry. He was trying to put it all together, with her tastes in mind, to show it off when he finished it.</p><p>It was endlessly sweet and very Sherlock to plan ahead like that.</p><p>She was fine, she'd reassured Mary and John, reminding them that all she had to do was say 'please' and Sherlock would drop any and all cases for her. She hadn't, and that said something. They both needed this time of normalcy, of doing something, being active, before it all changed…because it <em>would</em> change when the baby arrived, as she was sure they understood themselves. They'd let it go after that, though Mary had gotten a bit emotional and hugged Sherlock three seconds longer than normal for how sweet he was to Leena…which made Sherlock fear something was wrong with Mary's baby because she was upset, until all three reassured him it was just hormones.</p><p>The cases picked up after that, it seemed Sherlock had ben reminded of Mary's own impending birth and it set him on double time, it wasn't just HIS child that would be in danger from his enemies, it would be John and Mary's too…and adding that any enemies Mary might have made over her time too. And Sherlock took any case he could, no matter how ridiculous.</p><p>Leena shook her head as she and Sherlock walked up the stairs to their flat, John just behind them, having come from their latest case. She had to be honest, when she'd created the profile for the assassin involved in the case…she hadn't quite thought it would end up being a jellyfish even if the profile still, somehow, fit.</p><p>"A jellyfish?!" John was laughing as he too reveled in the ridiculousness of the case.</p><p>"I know," Leena smiled, moving to take her coat and scarf off.</p><p>"You can't arrest a jellyfish!"</p><p>"Well, you could try," Sherlock remarked, glancing at his phone as they reached the door to the sitting room.</p><p>"We <em>did</em> try," John reminded him, when his phone pinged with a sound alert. They had all turned their phones on silent as they were dealing with an assassin and didn't want to alert him or her…or it apparently. Now though he'd only just switched it on…and been hit with the number of messages he'd received, "Oh God."</p><p>"Mary?" Leena looked up, having gotten two texts and one call of her own.</p><p>"59 missed calls," John swallowed hard.</p><p>"We're in a lot of trouble," Sherlock realized.</p><p>"I think Mary is," Leena quickly put her coat back on, "There's only one reason she'd call you that much on a case."</p><p>The two men's eyes widened as they realized what that would be, the three of them racing down the stairs and to John's car…</p><p>~8~</p><p>"Breathe, Mary, breathe," Leena was encouraging, holding onto Mary's hand as she sat in the back seat with the woman, John racing off as the driver with Sherlock beside him, though while Sherlock was facing the two women, turned on the seat, his attention was on his phone.</p><p>Mary was panting, gripping Leena's hand so tightly something was bound to break, but the contractions were too close. The baby was coming and it was coming now! She'd initially thought the first of the contractions were a bit of just aches and pains, then when she felt them she half convinced herself they were Braxton-Hicks, false ones. But instead of getting longer apart and easier, they got shorter and sharper. And when she realized she was in labor, guessing her water might have broken while she'd actually been using the loo, she had called John, frantic. She tried, at first, not to call too much as he was on a case. But when hours went by and no response, she began to grow a bit more panicked. She refused to call an ambulance to the hospital, because John might head home after and then he'd have to drive to the hospital and what if he missed it? So she'd waited, she would go to the hospital with John and they'd have the baby and it would be <em>fine</em>.</p><p>Or it would have been 59 phone calls ago and not when her contractions were mere seconds apart.</p><p>"Ow!" she cried out, her other hand on her stomach, tensing, trying so hard not to push like her body was telling her, trying to make it to the hospital first, "Oh my God. Oh my God!"</p><p>Leena winced when a contraction must have hit because Mary squeezed her hand tightly and nearly punched the roof of the car with the other hand.</p><p>"Relax," John recited, a technique they'd learned in the birthing classes they'd taken, "It's got two syllables..."</p><p>"I'm a nurse, darling!" Mary snapped, "I think I know what to do!"</p><p>"Come on then, come on."</p><p>"Re…" Mary tried it, trying to purse her lips and breath out on the 'lax' but ended up screaming.</p><p>"...lax," John still tried to coach her through it with his own breath.</p><p>"John, I don't think it's working," Leena warned as Mary twisted on the seat, clearly in a great deal of pain.</p><p>"Just drive!" Mary begged, "Please, God, just drive! God, drive!"</p><p>"Sherwood," Leena reached out and pushed the phone away, a little touched to see he had been googling 'how to help with labor pains' and not texting about a case, but she needed his attention right now, "This isn't going to work."</p><p>John would speed like the devil was after him to the hospital, unable to look back and really see for himself the state Mary was in, he may not listen to the two women shouting to pull over, but if Sherlock could look and see and even deduce how long Mary had before the baby would be there, John would have to listen.</p><p>"Sherwood, how long?" she asked, though the pointed look she threw Mary told him she knew the answer as well as he did.</p><p>He made the mistake of glancing down, his eyes nearly bugging out of his head, "John, pull over!" he ordered.</p><p>"We're almost there…" John insisted.</p><p>"John!" Mary nearly screamed, "John, I think you have to pull over."</p><p>"Mary, Mary turn to me," Leena instructed, seeing what Sherlock had and trying to position Mary so her back was to the one door, her feet up on the seat, "We need more room, John!"</p><p>"Pull over!"</p><p>"Oh my God!" Sherlock nearly jerked seeing something very not normal down below and snapped around, reaching out to jerk John's car to the side, "John, pull over!"</p><p>John shoved him away and turned to pull the car over safely, half going up on the curb as Mary screamed.</p><p>"Now get back here, Doctor!" Leena shouted and John was out the door, running around to Leena's side and yanking it open, his eyes widened as he saw something crowning…</p><p>Sherlock jumped out of the car, on the phone with the hospital to send an ambulance to their location because the baby really was coming right that second…</p><p>~8~</p><p>In a turn of events that shocked exactly and only one person, it was <em>not</em> a little girl like John had been expecting, but a boy. And after Mary's labor, after he'd missed 59 calls and she'd had to give birth on the side of the road, he had been told, in no uncertain terms, that SHE would be naming their son Hamish Sherlock Watson and if he didn't like it he could shut up about it and damn well make sure he answered the phone with the next child they had!</p><p>Mary had expressed to Leena sometime ago that she quite loved middle names more than first names for most people. They were just so interesting in how they weren't often used, and so she'd jokingly said if she and John ever had a son, she'd love to name him Hamish. John had not been amused, he rather didn't like his middle name for some reason.</p><p>Now he had no choice but to accept it or face the wrath of Mary Watson.</p><p>One did not face the wrath of Mary Watson and live to tell the tale.</p><p>Leena had had to drag Sherlock out of John's reach when he'd gone on a tangent about how HE knew it would be a boy and, upon examining the sonograms it was quite clear that it was not certain it was a girl because of how the baby was turned.</p><p>…John had nearly punched him because their nurse HAD said that, that they were having trouble identifying the gender due to the positioning, and he'd just assumed it had to be a girl because if they couldn't find a certain part of the anatomy, then it wasn't a boy.</p><p>Which had launched Sherlock into another tangent about how you wouldn't really KNOW the gender until the child was able to identify itself and tell you.</p><p>Despite that, he seemed entirely too pleased Hamish had turned out to be a Hamish, which had led to quite a sweet moment for the Holmes' when he'd revealed to Leena, just before they'd fallen asleep, that he was very glad Hamish existed, because John's son was the only boy he would ever trust around their daughter.</p><p>He still kept on that they were having a girl.</p><p>She'd given up arguing with him.</p><p>And, odd though it may be, she found it a sweet thought too. Not only the idea of their daughter and John and Mary's son, perhaps one day being more than friends. But also how protective Sherlock already was over their little girl and they didn't even know if they were having one, they decided to wait till the birth to find out. She knew, also, that Sherlock could sometimes have fears of the type of man he was, the type of friend he'd make, the type of husband he'd be…she could now tell him without any doubt he would be a wonderful father too. He already loved their child more than anything and that was enough.</p><p>As she stood there, watching Molly and Mrs. Hudson fawning over the newest Watson and taking pictures of it in John and Mary's home, she had no doubts that things would work out for all of them with this whole Moriarty mess. Never, ever underestimate the lengths someone would go to keep their child safe. John and Mary would never allow anything to happen to their son, just like she and Sherlock would never let anything happen to him or their child either.</p><p>"Sherwood," she sighed, holding out a hand when she heard a faint tapping beside her, where Sherlock stood, on his phone even while the celebrations were going on.</p><p>He chuckled under his breath and handed the phone over, "I was just…"</p><p>"I know," she cut in, giving him a smile, not needing to see his phone to know who he was texting and what he was checking on. He was making sure none of his markers or spies were reporting anything going on even remotely close to the Watson home, not wanting this moment to be ruined.</p><p>"It…it wasn't too much, was it?" Sherlock asked her after a moment, shifting beside her in a way the belied his uncertainty and concern.</p><p>She looked around the room, at the flowers everywhere, the balloons floating about, a very large white teddy bear sitting beside the sofa, next to John, with a glass of champagne on the table. All of it was from Sherlock and her, a bit more from Sherlock though. He felt partly responsible for how Mary had given birth, dragging John to a case so close to her due date, insisting they silence their phones to be extra safe this time. He had wanted to apologize, to show them he cared about Mary and the baby even if it hadn't seemed that way, or seemed that way from his perspective of how they saw his actions.</p><p>"I don't think you'll be able to pry that bear away from that boy once he can reach for it himself," Leena teased him. She was sure that the bear appeared as a big white blob to the baby, but she'd already seen Hamish waving his arms at it, even when he'd been passed off to John with the Watsons thinking he was swinging to his father to hold him. She turned to him, "You did brilliantly, Locksley."</p><p>He smiled at that, nodding, pleased.</p><p>"Congratulations, John," Leena smiled when John approached them, getting up from the sofa to allow Molly and Mrs. Hudson closer to the baby, sitting on either side of Mary.</p><p>"Thanks," John positively beamed at them.</p><p>"I bet you wish you'd gone with Sherlock now," Sherlock smirked.</p><p>John rolled his eyes, knowing it was a dig at how he'd been so sure the child was a girl and 'Sherlock isn't a girl's name' and now his child would forever be Hamish Watson.</p><p>"The christening is the first of March," John told them, he and Mary had decided to wait 6 weeks from the birth to have the baptism, "You're…you're still ok to be godparents right?"</p><p>With everything that had happened since he and Mary first brought up the subject with the two, with the threat of Moriarty hanging over Sherlock and his own wife being pregnant, he didn't want to add any more pressure on the man. They could always ask Molly and…well, maybe Mike? To be godparents if Sherlock and Leena couldn't do it any longer.</p><p>Sherlock gave him an odd look, "Of course we are."</p><p>Leena shook her head as Sherlock stepped past them and over to Mary, likely to ask the woman exactly how much sleep John had gotten since they got home from the hospital a few days ago if he was asking ridiculous questions like that. She looked back at John, "He made a vow, John," she reminded him, "We both did. To protect you three, that doesn't end if…if, god forbid, something happened to two of you," she reached out to put a hand on his shoulder, "Hamish will always be safe with us around, all of you will. Nothing will happen."</p><p>John smiled and nodded, "Thanks, Jacks."</p><p>"And…" Leena added, "It wouldn't be fair for us to turn you down and still expect you two to be godparents for us."</p><p>John nodded absently, only to blink and turn to her sharply when her words caught up to him. He pointed at his chest, "Us?"</p><p>She nodded, "If…if you want to…" she didn't even get a chance to finish before John was hugging her tightly, a quick look over his shoulder, at the tears in Mary's eyes as Sherlock spoke to her, told her he'd asked Mary too.</p><p>Well, great minds and all that.</p><p>~8~</p><p>The first of March came around quite quickly for the Watsons, though between baby duty and being new parents, it was expected. They hardly slept the first few weeks, all their time consumed by Hamish and bonding with him, caring for him. Sherlock and Leena were a constant presence whenever they needed help.</p><p>It…truly surprised John to see Sherlock so invested in helping out with the baby, going so far as to test the best way to apply a diaper, researching which diapers were best, and how to do it with minimal mess. The man even made a chart of which mashed foods Hamish favored to make it easier for them to feed the boy. Leena hadn't been as startled, remarking only that Sherlock loved his experiments and…it was good practice for him, to be around a child, a baby, and get a feel for handling one.</p><p>Sherlock attempting a joke about how Hamish was teaching him how not to drop a baby after that first mishap…didn't help at all. He hadn't actually dropped Hamish of course, someone was always in the room with Sherlock whenever he so much as held the baby so it never happened, but the joke was in poor taste.</p><p>Now though, it was time for Hamish's baptism. Neither John nor Mary were exceedingly religious, but they were doing this just to cover their bases. If Hamish grew up wanting to attend church or one day marry in one, it would help. The elderly vicar proceeding over the event was a kindly man, he had to be to not have kicked Sherlock out of the church for his lack of attention. Everyone was there, Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, Molly, and the godparents…though Sherlock was texting away on his phone. He usually wouldn't care where he was while texting, and normally Leena would chastise him for doing so during this moment, but he'd gotten an alert from one of his spies that one of his markers might be deviating and he was checking that nothing could happen so close to the church.</p><p>"Father," the vicar intoned, "We ask you to send your blessings on this water," he leaned forward to bless the baptismal water, "And sanctify it for our use this day, in Christ's name," he smiled, turning to the happy parents, "Now, what name have you given your son?"</p><p>"Hamish Sherlock Watson," Mary spoke, carefully handing Hamish to the man to continue the process.</p><p>"Phone," Leena whispered to Sherlock, elbowing him slightly, he'd asked her to warn him right before he needed to actually do something, which was now as the Vicar turned to them just as he hid the phone behind his back.</p><p>"And now, godparents," the vicar smiled at them, not seeing Leena reach her hand behind Sherlock's back to stop him trying to text behind him, "Are you ready to help the parents of this child in their duties as Christian parents?"</p><p>"We are," they both spoke as one.</p><p>John looked quite startled, and more than a little pleased, to see Sherlock paying attention. Mary, though, threw Leena a knowing wink for her move.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Hamish grew quickly, which was another experiment Sherlock had taken to. Monitoring how fast babies grew so that he could adequately calculate how many outfits they would need and in what sizes. It didn't make sense, he'd said, to spend a fortune on all manner of newborn onesies when they would only last a month before the child outgrew them. Not that they had to spend a fortune, Mary had already offered them the gender neutral onesies Hamish had already outgrown, offering more if their child ended up being a boy as well.</p><p>Leena sat off to the side of 221B, in Sherlock's favored chair, watching as he paced before the fireplace, wearing his tan dressing gown, mid-lecture about something, waving around a small rattle in his hand as he went.</p><p>"As ever, Watson, you see but do not observe," he lamented, turning to the chair John usually sat in, "To you, the world remains an impenetrable mystery whereas, to me, it is an open book. Hard logic versus romantic whimsy. That is your choice. You fail to connect actions to their consequences. Now, for the last time..." he moved close, leaning in and holding the rattle up, "If you want to keep the rattle, do not throw the rattle, hmm?"</p><p>He was speaking to Hamish as the boy was strapped into a plastic baby seat resting on John's chair. The boy was about three months old, strapped into the chair so he wouldn't fall over, not quite developed enough to sit up on his own yet, with a small tray attached to the chair to keep things from spilling everywhere.</p><p>He held up the rattle, offering it to Hamish, before placing it on the tray…only for the boy's flailing arms to knock into it, sending it flying back at Sherlock's face.</p><p>Leena tried her best to hide a laugh behind her hand, her mouth half full and munching on a bit of a craving she'd been having, pickle chips and mustard.</p><p>"Something funny?" Sherlock huffed, straightening and turning to face her, though his expression grew fond when he saw her happy smile, her soft eyes, the way she was watching him.</p><p>"No," she defended, her voice very quiet as John and Mary were laid out on the sofa a few feet away, both dead asleep and she couldn't bear to wake them, "Nothing funny at all, Mr. Holmes."</p><p>"You laughed at me, Mrs. Holmes," he reminded her, moving over to his chair and onto a knee to be more on eye level with her, "Implies something amused you."</p><p>"Or I'm just happy," she defended.</p><p>He smiled softly at that, "Are you?" he asked, not quite teasing any longer, genuinely asking. Pregnancy was…much harder on the wives than the husbands, in his opinion, his body wasn't the one changing, he wasn't the one constantly uncomfortable and aching, he wasn't the one whose insides were shifting to accommodate a new life. It could be hard on women, he knew, not all of them were happy to be pregnant and it just…it meant the world to him to know Leena was happy, content, that he was doing his job as husband to make her as comfortable as he could.</p><p>"Always," she reached out to touch his cheek lightly, her eyes travelling over his face before landing on his own, "So long as I'm with you, I will always be happy, Locksley."</p><p>He reached up to touch her hand, pressing it a bit more to his cheek, relieved and content with this quiet moment they were sharing.</p><p>"Ooh," Leena inhaled a moment.</p><p>"What is it?" he stiffened.</p><p>She just turned her hand so she could link fingers with him a bit more, before moving his hand down to her stomach, just a bit rounder, nearly 5 months along, and pressed it to the side, "Do you feel that?"</p><p>He waited a moment, frowning in concentration, before his eyes jumped up to hers, wide and startled.</p><p>She smiled, resting her hand on top of his, "I think she's very happy, too."</p><p>Sherlock looked down at his hand, smiling, blinking a bit to not let on the tears he could feel prickling in the corner of his eyes though he knew she'd seen them but wouldn't say it, feeling his child kicking, feeling her move, and very pleased Leena at least humored him in that it was a girl. He composed himself quickly and moved to lean in, to give Leena a kiss, when she reached up with her free hand to press her fingers to his lips, stopping him.</p><p>"I've just eaten a jar of pickles with mustard," she warned him with a laugh, "It's disgusting."</p><p>At least she was under no illusions about how disturbing her cravings were.</p><p>He shook his head, "I'll risk it," he murmured, leaning in to kiss her anyway.</p><p>~8~</p><p>It was Christmas at 221B Baker Street. Well, not literally Christmas, that was still a few months off, but it <em>was</em> shaping up to be quite a wonderful day, in Sherlock's book at least. He didn't often think that Lestrade had any truly interesting cases because most of the ones the man sent were ones a normal human being could crack with time and effort and those were boring to Sherlock. He liked the ones that were truly challenging.</p><p>Lestrade, after spending so much time with Leena while working at the Yard, learning about Sherlock, talking with her about his past cases, had finally felt like he understood which cases were actually of interest to Sherlock, which ones he had more of a chance to get Sherlock to help with, and which ones he had to beg the man for help with just because HE couldn't solve it.</p><p>He had called them up at 221B to say he really thought he had a belter of a case for Sherlock and that meant something that might actually be interesting to the sociopath.</p><p>Of course, with that dangling in front of him, Sherlock had reached out to John about meeting up at the flat the next afternoon to go over this supposed belter while Leena reached out to Mary to see what she thought. They were trying to be considerate, checking in with Mary. They tried to rotate if they could, involve John on one mystery and Mary on another, keep them both involved without overwhelming them or taking them away from Hamish. But they also checked in to see if it would even be alright to bring the other into the case. If Hamish was fussy or teething or sick or whatever babies did, according to Sherlock, he would need both parents to help him through it and, Leena insisted, they not put too much on John or Mary.</p><p>Mary gave the ok that she and Hamish would be fine if they needed John this turn.</p><p>Though she had insisted they facetime her if it actually was as interesting as Lestrade thought it would be, just because she couldn't be there didn't mean she didn't want a chance to help crack it.</p><p>So there they were, in the flat, waiting for John to arrive, which he did very punctually based on Sherlock's own timing of how long it took to get to the flat from his work.</p><p>"Hey," Lestrade greeted when John walked in, unable to keep the smirk off his face.</p><p>It took John less than a minute to understand why he was smirking. Sherlock was not in his armchair. Lestrade was actually sitting in Sherlock's armchair and the man wasn't complaining about it.</p><p>In fact, Sherlock was on the sofa, sitting on one end, Leena on the other though she was turned so her legs were extended along the cushions…her feet were resting in Sherlock's lap while he kneaded them. He would have laughed, he really would have, to see the great William Sherlock Scott Holmes giving someone a footrub, had it not been for the fact that that someone was his pregnant wife. Things were always different when it came to Leena, and honestly he was just glad to see Sherlock doing something vaguely normal and considerate for his wife. It put him and Mary at ease that Leena wasn't just brushing things off or trying to ease their minds.</p><p>"Afternoon," John nodded, moving to sit on his armchair, setting his briefcase beside it, "He says you've got a good one, Greg."</p><p>"Oh yeah," Lestrade cleared his throat and pulled out the report from his own case to go over with them, though he wasn't quite sure how much Leena would absorb, the woman seemed to be nodding off on the sofa, "It was David Welsborough's fiftieth birthday and he got a skype call from his son, Charlie. Kid's about 20 years old, off in Tibet for a gap year…" he trailed off when he saw Sherlock rolling his eyes at how he was getting 'too personal' and not 'factual' about it, "Right so he gets a skype call, Charlie showing him the mountains, wishing him a happy birthday. But the image starts to go wonky and cut off but he can still hear Charlie. Starts asking him about if he's eating cos, you know, the wife. He was a little worried cos Charlie was a bit scattered, not really normal for him and…anyway," he shook his head, not wanting to lose Sherlock's interest with his own opinions on the matter, "Asks his dad to check something on his car, parked outside the home since he left. Something about a bet and needing to prove he had a Power Ranger action figure stuck to the bonnet. Asks his dad to send him the photo. Dave does it, sends the picture, call cuts out. A week later…" he hesitated, trying to grin, knowing this was the part that would get Sherlock but also knowing it wasn't professional for him to grin at something so horrific for the family.</p><p>"Yeah?" John urged, curious himself.</p><p>"Something really weird happens," Lestrade continued, feeling more confident when Sherlock smiled, "Drunk driver, he's totally smashed, the cops are chasing him, and he turns into the drive of the Welsborough house to try and get away. Unfortunately, he crashed right into the back of Charlie's car, causes a fuel leak, causes an explosion, gave the family half a heart attack, middle of the night and a huge explosion outside…" he cleared his throat again, "The drunk guy survived, they managed to pull him out, but when they put the fire out and examined the parked car…" he pulled out another packet of papers and handed it to John, "They found a burned, human skeleton in the driver's seat."</p><p>"Whose body?" John frowned at the pictures, flipping through them to the medical report.</p><p>"Charlie Welsborough, the son."</p><p>"What?"</p><p>Lestrade nodded, "The son who was in Tibet. DNA all checks out. The night of the party, the car's empty, then a week later the dead boy's found at the wheel," he looked over, startled when Sherlock chuckled, "Yeah, I thought it'd tickle you. Charlie Welsborough's the son of a Cabinet minister so I'm under a lot of pressure to get results."</p><p>Sherlock scoffed, "Who cares about that? Tell me about the seats."</p><p>"The seats?" John glanced at him.</p><p>"Yes. The car seats," he held out a hand for the folder Lestrade had with more pictures of the car, forcing the man to get up and give it to him as he wasn't about to disturb Leena while she rested. He quickly flipped through it, making a note of the burned and charred remains of the seats, because they could tell a lot about the case, if there were any residual evidence of who put the kid there or tell how long he'd been sitting there given chemicals staining the material. What he saw, thought, was unexpected and gave it a new twist, "Made of vinyl, two different types of vinyl present…was it his own car?"</p><p>"Yeah," Lestrade nodded, "Not flash, he was a student."</p><p>"Well, that's suggestive."</p><p>"Why?"</p><p>"Vinyl's cheaper than leather."</p><p>"Er, yeah, right?"</p><p>"There's something else," John spoke up, or tried to speak up just a bit more to get their attention without waking Leena.</p><p>"Yes?" Sherlock looked over at him.</p><p>"According to this," he pointed at a lab report, "Charlie Welsborough had already been dead for a week."</p><p>"What?" Sherlock began to smile at that.</p><p>"The body in the car, dead for a week."</p><p>"Oh, this IS a good one," Sherlock beamed, turning to Lestrade, "Is it my birthday? You want help?"</p><p>"Yes, please," Lestrade let out a breath, seeing Sherlock actually might take this up without prompting or Leena asking him to.</p><p>"One condition."</p><p>"Ok."</p><p>"You have to take all the credit," Leena spoke, startling John and Lestrade, though Sherlock just patted her feet before she curled her legs and tucked them under her, shifting so she could look at the two more clearly.</p><p>"Um, sorry," Lestrade winced, "Did we wake you?"</p><p>"I wasn't asleep, Greg," Leena chuckled.</p><p>"You er…weren't?" John, too, seemed a bit startled.</p><p>Sherlock scoffed, "She crinkles her nose when she sleeps."</p><p>Leena chuckled at that, "I was just relaxing, letting you boys have fun with your mystery case," she twisted a little to stretch, "But we really do want you to take the credit, Greg."</p><p>"What?" Lestrade nearly snorted at that, but Sherlock actually looked serious.</p><p>"It gets boring if I just solve them all," Sherlock shrugged.</p><p>Well, that and…they'd talked about this, when Lestrade had phoned about it the night before, about how much of a top priority case it would be which meant this would be the first case the Yard had with a great deal of publicity. He'd been giving a lot of thought to the enemies he gathered over the years. He gained them by being cocky, by <em>wanting</em> his name out there, wanting people to know he was as good as he was.</p><p>A large part of that was Leena though. She'd been away in America and he'd wanted his work to make the papers, so much so that it would show up in the news sites she went to. He wanted her to know he was keeping sharp, that he still had it, that he was still as great as she always thought he was. The enemies he'd made were an unfortunate side effect of having his name out there as much as it had been.</p><p>She'd come back, and they'd had such a short time together before he'd had to leave again. Part of him wanted to keep up the headlines, take the credit, show off in person for her.</p><p>She was his wife now, she was going to be the mother of his children, she had chosen him. He would always impress her, he would always try to impress her, but he didn't feel that need to have his name out there as much anymore. She was right beside him, seeing him be as great as he always was firsthand, she didn't need to read about it in police reports and headlines.</p><p>And, well, everything with John and Mary and Hamish and what had happened the last year was…eye opening. He had more people he cared about, more people he wanted to protect, and drawing attention to himself would only put bigger targets on their backs too.</p><p>Let the police have the credit, he'd still be named in the reports, he was still a consulting Detective, he wasn't the main focus though.</p><p>For once, he didn't feel like he had to be. The people he cared about knowing knew, the people he wanted to impress were, he truly didn't care about other people's opinions. And if this was a way to put the eye on the police force instead of him and his family, he'd do it. He was at that place in life where he was finally content, he had everything he had ever wanted, now he wanted to keep it.</p><p>Lestrade, though scoffed, "Yeah, you <em>say</em> that, but then John blogs about it and you get all the credit anyway."</p><p>"Yeah, he's got a point," John laughed, handing back the reports, seeing Lestrade about to leave.</p><p>"Which makes me look like some kind of prima donna who insists on getting credit for something he didn't do."</p><p>"Oh, I think you've hit a sore spot," he teased the two of them, though while Leena seemed resignedly understanding, Sherlock appeared startled and confused.</p><p>"Like I'm some kind of credit junkie!"</p><p>"Definitely a sore spot," Leena murmured with a wince. She'd have to take tea with him sometime and explain Sherlock's 'change of heart' about all this. They'd talked for quite a while about it, when she'd noticed how he hadn't made a fuss when Dimmock or the other detectives didn't make large chunks of their reports about him. She'd just idly wondered why he hadn't asked for more credit and he'd just looked at her and said she gave him all the credit he wanted.</p><p>He'd always said he did what he did to impress her, she'd believed him, of course, but she always thought there was more to it, wanting to be impressive to other people too. She finally understood how literal he had been. He loved the puzzles, there would be no shortage of mysteries to keep him occupied and his mind sharp, he just didn't feel the need to broadcast it everywhere now, not when she was finally beside him and would stay that way forever.</p><p>"So you take all the glory, thanks," Lestrade continued, striding up to Sherlock and snatching back the folder.</p><p>"Ok?" Sherlock asked, completely bewildered by what was going on. Growing up, when forced to work in groups that didn't involve Leena, his groupmates were always beyond pleased to take all the credit. Was this not like that? And what did it matter if John blogged about it? He only got a handful of readers compared to the wide reach of the papers reporting about the Yard.</p><p>"Thanks all the same," Lestrade huffed, "Look, just solve the bloody thing, will you? It's driving me nuts."</p><p>"Anything you say, Giles," Sherlock nodded, winching a bit when Leena, who had sat up and moved closer to him, elbowed him in the side for that, "Just kidding," he added when John and Lestrade looked at him.</p><p>"Greg," Leena whispered in his ear when Lestrade turned to shove the folder into his bag. She'd literally said his name twice already, but Sherlock didn't really care to give attention to names for the most part.</p><p>"It's obvious, though, isn't it, what happened?" John asked, smirking a bit, having seen Leena give Sherlock the clue.</p><p>"John, you amaze me," Sherlock turned to him, startled in a good way now, "You know what happened?"</p><p>"Not a clue," John snorted, "It's just you normally say that at this point."</p><p>"Mmm," Sherlock hummed, "Well, then…" he stood, holding out a hand to help Leena up and began to take off his dressing gown, smirking when he turned to set it down, having caught sight of the small lip bite Leena had made at the sight of his shirt beneath, a white shirt, not his purple one, but one his mother had gotten him that was one size too small, which he knew Leena found second most attractive on him. It had to be second most, with her hormones, they wouldn't make it out of the flat and might scar poor John and Greg if it had been the purple shirt, "Let's help you solve your little problem, Greg. Shall we?" he turned to Leena to take her hand again as she shook her head and followed him to the door.</p><p>"You hear that?" they could hear the grin in Lestrade's voice from behind them.</p><p>"I know!" John laughed as he followed them out with Lestrade.</p><p>"So how's it going then, fatherhood?" the man made some conversation while the Holmeses put on their coats.</p><p>"Oh, good, great! Yeah, amazing."</p><p>"Getting any sleep?"</p><p>"Christ, no."</p><p>"I've told you, John," Leena called, tugging on her coat a bit to button it up before giving up, it wasn't that chilly out so close to May anyway, "Any time you and Mary need a rest, Sherwood and I would be happy to watch Hamish for you."</p><p>John smiled more fondly when he saw Sherlock actually nodding in agreement, knowing Leena hadn't put him up to it, "I know, thanks Jacks."</p><p>Leena nodded, before rolling her eyes when Sherlock began to try and put a scarf around her neck.</p><p>Lestrade smirked, muttering to John, "You're at the beck and call of a screaming, demanding baby, woken up at all hours to obey his every whim. Must feel <em>very</em> different," he added with a glance at Sherlock.</p><p>"I'm sorry, what?" Sherlock perked up at that when the two stepped past to lead the way down the stairs.</p><p>John ignored him, speaking to Lestrade, "Yes, well, you know how it is. All you do is clean up their mess, pat them on the head..."</p><p>"Are you two having a little joke?"</p><p>"Never a word of thanks. Can't even tell people's faces apart."</p><p>Sherlock eyed the men and turned to Leena who was pursing her lips to keep from laughing, ""This is a joke, isn't it?"</p><p>But Lestrade kept on, "Then it's all, 'Ooh, aren't you clever? You're so, so clever!'"</p><p>"Is it about me?" Sherlock tried to ask.</p><p>Lestrade glanced at him and murmured to John, "I think he needs winding."</p><p>Going along with the bit of teasing, Leena absently patted Sherlock on the back for his 'burping' as Lestrade was remarking.</p><p>"Thank god for Leena," John laughed this time.</p><p>Sherlock looked at her, "I don't get it."</p><p>"They're both saying they love you very much and find you completely adorable," Leena told him, which made Sherlock smirk as he stepped out of the flat to the sputtering of John and Lestrade. She turned to the two men, pointing a warning finger at them, "Picking on my husband? You're lucky I don't kick you in the shins," she reminded them of her favored way of dealing with people who insulted Sherlock in the past, "Call him a baby? Must be why everyone loves him."</p><p>John could only shake his head, they'd walked right into that one hadn't they?</p><p>~8~</p><p>"Charlie's family are pretty cut up about it," Lestrade warned as he led the trio up the drive of the Welsborough house, heading for the front door.</p><p>"Understandable," Leena remarked, looking around at the house, glancing at where the fire had to have occurred before it was cleared away and to the set up of the houses exterior. She had four ideas of what might have happened, the fact that there was no residual ash or smoke or stain on the house told her arson wasn't involved, there was no additional chemicals put in the car to cause the explosion, it wasn't intentionally a bomb or anything.</p><p>Narrowed it down to 3 then…none of them very good ideas and she really hoped Sherlock had a different one, even just a single one that wasn't as gruesome and devastating as hers were.</p><p>"So go easy on them, yeah?" Lestrade added, more to Sherlock than the others.</p><p>"You know me," Sherlock shrugged.</p><p>Luckily John's phone began to ring for a facetime call, cutting off Lestrade's remark of 'yeah, that's why I asked it.'</p><p>"Hey, hello!" Mary appeared, Hamish in her arms, burping the boy as she swayed with him.</p><p>"Got 'em, don't worry," John reassured her, "Pampers, the cream you can't get from Boots…"</p><p>Mary snorted, "Yeah, never mind about that. Where are you now? At the dead boy's house?"</p><p>"Yeah?"</p><p>"I was just about to call you, Mary," Leena peeked over John's shoulder to wave at the woman, "You beat me to it!"</p><p>"Googled how long it takes to get there from 221B," Mary shrugged, "What does Sherlock think? Any theories?"</p><p>"Uh, well, I texted you the details," John spoke.</p><p>"Yeah, two different types of vinyl…"</p><p>"How do you know about that?" Sherlock called, appearing over John's other shoulder to speak to Mary.</p><p>"Oh, you'd be amazed at what a receptionist picks up," Mary smirked, leaning closer to whisper dramatically, "They know everything!"</p><p>"Solved it, then?" he smirked.</p><p>She shrugged, "I'm working on it."</p><p>"Oh, Mary, motherhood's slowing you down."</p><p>"Pig!"</p><p>"Keep trying," he laughed, when a thought struck him and he turned to Leena, "What about you?"</p><p>"Three ideas," she remarked.</p><p>"Hmm, one," he countered with a grin, which made her huff and roll her eyes.</p><p>Usually she would give up when he'd narrowed it down that much, but she wanted to see if she could fully crack it this time, "Ok, narrowing it down…" she considered something that related to two of her theories and one of them, "Tell me, would you say this is more of a Christmas or Halloween type event?"</p><p>He hummed, "Christmas."</p><p>"Ooh," she let out a breath, her voice growing quiet and grim, "One."</p><p>He nodded, "One."</p><p>"One what?" John frowned, "One theory? You know how it happened?"</p><p>"Might have," Leena gave him a sad look, "Just…really, <em>really</em> want to be sure before saying it. It's…it's not good John, it's really not. It's horrific."</p><p>"Then wouldn't that be…Halloween?" he asked, not quite sure what she meant by it, but comparing the two, something horrific would be more to do with Halloween and terror wouldn't it?</p><p>"I'm honestly not sure if it would be better or worse if it was," Leena murmured, a hand absently resting on her stomach. She looked up, feeling another hand on the small of her back to see Sherlock beside her, looking at her intently with all the promise in the world in his eyes that where her mind had gone, to all the horrors in the world that their child would be risking exposure to, <em>he</em> would keep them safe, no matter what. She moved her left hand behind her back to take his, linking their fingers together and just holding his hand as they approached the front door.</p><p>"So, what about it, then?" Mary asked, seeing Sherlock get distracted by something above the porch, "What, an empty car that suddenly has a week-old corpse in it? And what are you gonna call this one?"</p><p>"Ooh," John perked up when she finally directed a question to him, "The, uh, the Ghost Driver."</p><p>"Don't give it a title," Sherlock complained as they reached the front hall.</p><p>"People like the titles."</p><p>"I hate the titles."</p><p>"I love them," Leena shrugged.</p><p>"I can reasonably tolerate the good titles," Sherlock amended, which made Leena laugh when Lestrade made the familiar whipping noise behind them.</p><p>John chuckled, "Give the people what they want?" he offered Sherlock, seeing how quickly he'd flipped his opinion because Leena enjoyed the titles.</p><p>"No, never do that. People are stupid."</p><p>"SOME people," Mary emphasized with her nose in the air teasingly, winking at Leena as she laughed, both of them knowing their boys would go to the ends of the earth for them and think them brilliant.</p><p>"Just like SOME people," Leena added, smiling up at Sherlock, "Are utterly brilliant," she leaned in to kiss his cheek, making him nod and smile.</p><p>"This way," Lestrade called, leading them over to a closed door as John ended the call. He opened it to reveal a study, a desk, bookshelves, a small table near the window with some displays of Margaret Thatcher resting on them. And there, sitting on a sofa, were Charlie's devastated parents.</p><p>"Mr. and Mrs. Welsborough," Sherlock approached as they stood, reaching out to shake their hands, "I really am most terribly sorry to hear about your son…"</p><p>John was mildly surprised when Sherlock got the gender right. He half expected the man to call Charlie their daughter and insult them with how little he actually cared about their child and more about the mystery it presented. He looked over when Leena touched his arm, gripping it lightly, her eyes on Sherlock…and it hit him.</p><p>Son.</p><p>HE had a son. Sherlock had a godson. In twenty years, god forbid, it could have been the same situation, him having someone approach him to talk about his deceased son.</p><p>For once, Sherlock was being empathetic with someone who wasn't Leena.</p><p>"Mr. and Mrs. Welsborough," Lestrade stepped over, "This is Mr. Sherlock Holmes, our consulting detective, and his wife, Jackie Holmes, from our Profiling Unit," he hadn't been sure about introducing Leena at first, he didn't want to imply foul play or that there was a killer to be found, but, given the situation, it could very well be that and if it was he wanted them to know his very best were on the case.</p><p>Leena offered them a sad smile, "We are so very sorry for your loss," she told them, "We will do our absolute best to determine what happened."</p><p>"Thank you very much for coming," David looked between them, "We've heard a great deal about you two. If anyone can throw any light into this darkness, surely it will be you."</p><p>Sherlock nodded, "Well, I believe that I…" before trailing off when something by the window caught his eye, "Can."</p><p>Leena looked over, seeing his attention now fixated on the small table she'd glimpsed before. There was a framed, large card set on a stand at the back of the table. It looked like an invitation of sorts and even from across the room, given what the table appeared to be, it was likely one sent to David by Margaret Thatcher herself. In front of it, to the left, was a framed photo of the woman, and to the right was another one of David with her. In the front of the individual photo was a commemorative plate of her. And in front of the other photo was a small figurine of her too. Even from there it was odd, she noticed, the placement of five objects, it was set up as though there should have been a sixth one opposite the invitation.</p><p>Something about it had caught Sherlock's attention for sure.</p><p>"Sherwood," she whispered to him, pulling him back to the case at hand.</p><p>"Mr. Holmes?" David called out, noticing the man had zoned out in the middle of him trying to express how devastated they were.</p><p>"Sorry," Sherlock pulled himself together and turned back to the parents, "You were saying?" but he let his gaze slide to Leena.</p><p>'What is it?' she asked, her face scrunched in a manner that could only read as that question.</p><p>He nodded his head to the side slightly, his brows furrowed, 'There's something wrong with that table.'</p><p>She nodded in understanding, and absently wandered the room to get to the table and look at it herself.</p><p>"Well, Charlie was our whole world, Mr. Holmes," David was saying to him, "I…I don't think we'll ever get over this."</p><p>"No," Sherlock agreed, "Shouldn't think so," he was actually attempting to be sincere and sympathetic there, if it had been <em>John</em> who lost his son, he didn't think the man would ever get over it either. He didn't think any parent could ever truly get over such a death. But his gaze was on Leena as she frowned at the table, glancing back at him and nodding that she saw it too, "So sorry. Will you excuse me a moment? I just…" he hurried over to the table to look at it, watching as she lightly traced a scuff mark on the leather of the table where it was clear another object <em>had</em> been there.</p><p>"Now what's wrong?" John asked, moving over to them while Lestrade tried to reassure the grieving parents.</p><p>"Not sure. I just…"</p><p>"'By the pricking of my thumbs,'" Leena quoted a fitting sentiment to his rampant thoughts, "'Something wicked this way comes.'"</p><p>"Seriously?" John huffed.</p><p>"Intuition isn't just a gut feeling, John," Leena explained, "It's data that was processed too fast to comprehend at first. This here, this shrine," she offered for lack of a better word, "Mr. Welsborough is clearly a fan of Thatcher, idolizes her. Everything here is perfectly placed to display that, everything is clean and pristine, except this scuff here," she ran her finger down it again, "They'd never leave this scuff mark visible unless there was something placed here, but now it's not. Judging by the shape and scrape it was probably a…"</p><p>"Plaster bust," Sherlock said at the same time as her, smiling proudly as he watched her deduce the table the way he would have.</p><p>She rolled her eyes at him and nudged him, "I missed you," was all she said.</p><p>And he knew it was about the two years he'd been gone. It had comforted her to think like him, to deduce things the way he would have, like he was almost right there with her feeding her the information. She may not have thought anything much of the table, but HE did, and she trusted his mind to pick up on things that didn't belong, the way her mind picked up things about murderers and criminals that others wouldn't think of.</p><p>"What the hell has this got to do with Charlie?!" Mr. Welsborough demanded, having heard them muttering about it all this time while he'd been sitting there hoping to find out about his son.</p><p>"It was broken," Leena determined, she knew that the parents were desperate for information on their son but…well, even <em>she</em> was having a hard time working out how to tell them what she was almost certain happened without devastating them more. She was playing for time to think of a way to say it while she knew Sherlock was seeing another case forming, "You would have set it back if it was in one piece."</p><p>"Rug!" Sherlock pointed out.</p><p>"What?" Mrs. Welsbrorough seemed startled by the turn in the conversation.</p><p>"Well, how could it get broken? The only place for it to fall is the floor, and there is a big thick rug," he gestured at it, at how there wasn't any indication, not even a speck, of something broken there even after vacuuming.</p><p>"Does it matter?"</p><p>"Mrs. Welsborough, my apologies," John tried to speak, "It is worth letting him do this."</p><p>"Is your friend quite mad?"</p><p>"No, he's an arsehole, but it's an easy mistake."</p><p>"Look," David huffed, "No, we had a break-in. Some little bastard smashed it to bits. We found the remains out there in the porch."</p><p>"On the porch," Leena repeated, nodding, seeing what had Sherlock so caught up. She'd noticed there was a broken security camera on the porch but hadn't thought much of it, hadn't really made the connection to the plaster bust either till now. But she got it. Someone had broken in specifically to smash the bust and it had to be the bust they were after, otherwise they'd have smashed the rest of the paraphernalia. The fact that they didn't break it IN the house, meant they were taking it away, they broke the porch security footage so no one would see them smash it there. The house was carpeted, and if the break in had no weapon, he (statistically more likely to be a he) would smash it on the first hard surface he could find. The porch.</p><p>"How anybody could hate her so much, they'd go to the trouble of smashing her likeness…" David shook his head.</p><p>"That's the troubling part," Leena tried to explain, "If they hate her, why not smash the other images of her?" she gestured to the table, "Why only the bust?"</p><p>Mrs. Welsborough huffed, "Oh, Inspector, this is clearly a waste of time. I mean, if there's nothing more…"</p><p>"I know what happened to your son," Sherlock cut in.</p><p>"You do?" she turned to him, so hopeful.</p><p>"It's quite simple. Superficial, to be blunt…"</p><p>"Sherwood," Leena warned him with a look.</p><p>He nodded, seeing more in it than the others would, he needed a bit more time for her, "But first, tell me: the night of the break-in. This room was in darkness?"</p><p>"Well, yes," David spoke.</p><p>"And the porch where it was smashed, I noticed the motion sensor was damaged, so I assume it's permanently lit."</p><p>"How'd you notice that?" Lestrade blinked.</p><p>"I lack the arrogance to ignore details. I'm not the police."</p><p>"So you're saying he smashed it where he could see it," John followed.</p><p>"Exactly."</p><p>"Why?"</p><p>"Dunno. Wouldn't be fun if I knew."</p><p>"Mr. and Mrs. Welsborough," Leena stepped forward, kneeling down to look up at them, a comforting position for those in grief, they did not need to be looked down at or look up at someone lording something over them. Grief made you bow your head and hunch over, being below eye level displayed empathy too, being on your knees to share someone's grief was what she was hoping to convey now that she knew what to say, "The night of the birthday dinner…" she began, reaching out to take the woman's hand, "You were both quite sad Charlie couldn't be here, weren't you?"</p><p>"Of course," David murmured.</p><p>"Your son loved you very much," she continued, "And I would wager he was very sad about it too. So much so that he thought…well he thought he could surprise you for your big day and…and come home early, as a gift."</p><p>"But he didn't," David argued, "He was in Tibet."</p><p>"The first part of your conversation was, in fact, pre-recorded video," Sherlock spoke up, "Easily arranged."</p><p>"He wanted it to be a surprise," Leena repeated.</p><p>"There were two types of vinyl in the burnt-out remains of the car, one the actual passenger seat, the other a good copy. Well, good enough."</p><p>"Charlie got his hands on some cheap vinyl, to make it look like a car seat," Leena continued, "He put it over him, like a blanket, to blend in with the car so that…when you came outside to take a picture of it, he could jump out and surprise you."</p><p>David looked at her, tears in his eyes, shaking his head, not wanting to believe it, believe what it would mean, "You're joking."</p><p>"I wish I was," Leena reached out to touch his hand too, "I really wish I could tell you your son is still somewhere in Tibet, but he was here."</p><p>"He wanted you to get close enough to the car so he could spring the surprise," Sherlock agreed.</p><p>John closed his eyes, now understanding the difference between Christmas or Halloween. Christmas was a gift, a surprise, happy. Halloween would have been more murder and foul play. He agreed with Leena, he didn't know which he'd prefer to have to tell these people either. That their son died naturally with no one knowing…or that he'd been murdered and put there just at the end.</p><p>"That's when it happened," Sherlock continued.</p><p>"We were told Charlie hadn't been well," Leena spoke softly, "You were worried about his eating and about his drifting mid-conversation. It…it seems very much like he may have had a seizure while he was hiding, one he…he didn't survive."</p><p>"No one had any cause to go near his car," Sherlock added, "So there he remained in the driver's seat hidden until…"</p><p>Leena cut in, "We're <em>so</em> sorry," she said instead, not letting him remind them of the explosion, "The fake car seat must have melted from the heat, and just…made it all visible."</p><p>"Oh, God!" Mrs. Welsborough burst into tears as her husband reached out to pull her to him. Leena gave them a sorrowful look and stood, moving back over to Sherlock and a silent and grim John.</p><p>"Poor kid," Lestrade breathed.</p><p>"Really," Sherlock spoke, moving his arm around Leena's shoulder, having heard her voice crack near the end. He knew she wouldn't normally be so emotional during a meeting with clients, having seen so much worse during her work at the BAU, but with the pregnancy, some things just got to her more, "We're so sorry. Mr. Welsborough, Mrs. Welsborough."</p><p>He turned and led Leena out of the room, John and Lestrade following to give the grieving parents privacy. They didn't stop till they reached the front porch, Leena stepping away to take in some air while Sherlock turned to examine the concrete of the porch, giving her time to collect herself. She really <em>did</em> hate to be seen as unprofessional in such a way and he wouldn't comment on it or draw attention to it if she didn't want it.</p><p>"This is where it was smashed," he identified a moment later.</p><p>"That was amazing," Lestrade whistled.</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"The car, the kid."</p><p>"Ancient history," Sherlock waved it off, "Why are you still talking about it?"</p><p>Leena moved back over to him, resting a hand on his shoulder, nearer his back in thanks for his words. He would have loved to go over every single detail of the case and how he worked it out, it was his favorite part, breaking it down for others, but he knew it had upset her and he wanted the others to stop bringing it up.</p><p>"What's so important about a broken bust of Margaret Thatcher?" John looked between them, changing the topic.</p><p>"Can't stand it. Never can."</p><p>"What?" Lestrade shook his head.</p><p>"It's a loose thread," Leena explained, "Why break in and smash a bust but not anything else nor steal anything else? There's easier things to do."</p><p>Sherlock looked over at her, a question in his eyes that she nodded to, both of them thinking the same answer. You would smash it if you were looking for something, not simply to just break it.</p><p>"Doesn't mean he has to pull on it," John grumbled.</p><p>"What kind of a life would that be?" Sherlock snorted, "Besides, I have the strangest feeling…" he trailed off a moment, considering if this might be related to Moriarty, if this might be the start of his posthumous game, and shook his head, taking Leena's hand and leading her towards a black cab parked at the end of the drive that they'd taken there, "That's ours. You two take a bus."</p><p>"Why?" John asked, a bit of a laughing disbelief in his voice.</p><p>"Three very good reasons. First, my wife is pregnant and I'm not sending her onto a crowded bus. Two, I need to concentrate, and three, I don't want to hit you."</p><p>"I'd kick him in the shins for it," Leena teased, getting into the cab before him.</p><p>"The Mall, please," Sherlock gave directions for the nearest entrance to Mycroft's office.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Leena quite hated having to meet with Mycroft in his underground office, it always felt like Mycroft had all the power when meetings were had in a location <em>he</em> controlled. Still, the only thing that got her there besides Sherlock was that the tea selection was quite good. She'd gotten rather used to coffee in America, but there was something about the tea here that was wonderful. Even if she was forced to drink decaf versions of it.</p><p>"I met her once," Mycroft remarked after Sherlock gave him a rundown of the latest potential case, as it might involve Moriarty, he was taking no chances to keep his brother in the dark, not after he'd helped Sherlock fake his death.</p><p>"Thatcher?" Sherlock glanced over from where he was pacing along the floor.</p><p>"Rather arrogant, I thought."</p><p>Leena snorted into her tea, swallowing it and setting the cup down on the edge of Mycroft's desk, if just to annoy him about something being out of place, "YOU?"</p><p>It did earn a chuckle from the elder Holmes, "I know!" he took a breath, glancing at Sherlock's phone in his hand, an image of a baby on it which had been thrust at him a moment before Sherlock went off on his tangent, "Why am I looking at this?"</p><p>"That's Hamish," Leena replied, "John and Mary's baby boy."</p><p>"Oh, I see," he eyed the phone again, almost grimacing as he tried to smile, "Yes, looks very…fully functioning."</p><p>Sherlock turned and frowned at him, "Is that <em>really</em> the best you can do?" he shot Leena a look that clearly said they would <em>not</em> be allowing Mycroft anywhere near their child if that really was the best he could do.</p><p>"Sorry," Mycroft rolled his eyes, "I've never been very good with them."</p><p>"Babies?"</p><p>"Humans," he returned with a smug smile.</p><p>Leena took another sip of her tea, "Keep it up Mycroft and you'll be out of the running for godfather completely."</p><p>Sherlock smirked when Mycroft narrowed his eyes. For as much as the man played at being the exasperated older brother and non-human entity, he got surprisingly prickly about certain things related to his brother's life. Keeping Leena a part of it, not being banned from their wedding, and now being named godfather of their first child.</p><p>Of course they would <em>never</em> let that happen even if Mycroft somehow made them king and queen of England. John and Mary would be the godparents, it had been decided ages ago.</p><p>They just…well, they both very much liked to make Mycroft<em> think</em> he was in charge.</p><p>"Moriarty," Sherlock stepped forward and plucked the phone from Mycroft's hand, putting it in his pocket, "Did he have any connection with Thatcher? Any interest in her?"</p><p>"Why on earth would he?" Mycroft sneered.</p><p>"I don't know," Sherlock huffed, "You tell me."</p><p>Leena watched closely as Mycroft leaned forward and opened a file on his desk, "In the last year of his life, James Moriarty was involved with four pol…"</p><p>"Four political assassinations, over seventy assorted robberies and terrorist attacks, including a chemical weapons factory in North Korea, and had a minor obsession with trying to track down the Black Pearl of the Borgias," Leena cut in, rolling her eyes, "We said to tell us something we <em>don't</em> know, Mycroft."</p><p>He narrowed his eyes at her, but she merely wiggled her phone at him, it was surprising how much you could find about a dead man's activities when he was no longer around to protect his accounts.</p><p>"The pearl is still missing," Mycroft spoke, "In case you feel like applying yourself to something practical."</p><p>"Still not something we don't know."</p><p>"It's a pearl," Sherlock added, bored, "Get another one," he smirked with his back to his brother when he heard Leena snort at his remark, he didn't find interest in most material things, jewels and other trinkets, unless they came from her. Yorrick was proof of that. He sighed, hating to admit that there was something he wasn't grasping, "There's something important about this. I'm sure."</p><p>"It could be Moriarty," Leena nodded, understanding why it bothered him so much, he'd cast off other cases in the past easily, but he couldn't risk it now that he was truly back and his enemies knew it. Because any one of them could be a trick and if he ignored it now it might be something he'd regret later, "Or it could be someone else, but I agree with Sherwood…" she pointedly ignored Mycroft's scoff at how 'she always agreed with Sherlock' and continued, "There IS something off about this case."</p><p>"There's something coming," Sherlock murmured, thinking more on Leena's phrasing of it.</p><p>"Are you having a premonition, brother mine?" Mycroft leaned forward to observe his brother, he'd been waiting for the day when Sherlock's ego got to the point where he thought he could predict the future, if just so he could cut it down.</p><p>"The world is woven from billions of lives," Sherlock turned to face his brother, "Every strand crossing every other. What we call premonition is just movement of the web. If you could attenuate to every strand of quivering data, the future would be entirely calculable, as inevitable as mathematics."</p><p>Mycroft smirked, opening his mouth to speak…</p><p>"Please tell me you're not about to bring up the 'Appointment in Samarra,'" Leena spoke first with a huff, setting her teacup down, now empty.</p><p>Mycroft narrowed his eyes at her for stealing his thunder.</p><p>She scoffed, "You're still <em>so</em> easy to read, Mycroft, it's almost embarrassing," she reached forward to pat his hand, before turning to Sherlock, "Trying to predict the future can sometimes create it," she remarked. It really was so easy to guess where Mycroft's mind went, he had often loved to extol the 'Appointment in Samarra' when they were children, whenever Sherlock would try to anticipate his brother's tricks.</p><p>"Why does that sound familiar?" Sherlock hummed.</p><p>Leena laughed, "You've gone and deleted it, haven't you?" she guessed, "It's a tale about a merchant who saw Death in one place, and fled to another, thinking he'd escaped his fate. Only to be confronted with Death there. When he asked Death why he was surprised to see him in the first area, he said because he had an appointment with the man in the second location."</p><p>"The merchant who can't outrun Death," Mycroft sighed, "You always hated that story as a child. Less keen on predestination back then."</p><p>"I'm not sure I like it now," Sherlock grumbled, crossing his arms, thinking about his own 'death' at the hands of Moriarty, not wanting it to be something that just put off the inevitable. Not now.</p><p>"I rather liked your take on it," Leena remarked, getting up when Sherlock began to put his coat on, "Appointment in <em>Sumatra</em>, where he went to a different city and lived to a ripe old age."</p><p>Sherlock hummed, recalling it now, he'd filed it under Sumatra in his Mind Palace, keeping it because Leena had rather enjoyed his spin on the tale, "Goodnight, Mycroft," he called to the man, heading for the door with Leena.</p><p>"Then he becomes a pirate, for some reason," Mycroft called out.</p><p>"He wanted to save the princess from the same fate," Leena reminded him.</p><p>"Keep us informed," Sherlock called back.</p><p>"Of what?" Mycroft asked.</p><p>"Absolutely no idea."</p><p>"You shouldn't have done that," Leena teased as Sherlock slammed the door behind them, "He'll be calling us at all hours for any little thing he deems is a case you should take now."</p><p>"Good," Sherlock remarked, "He at least brings some more clever ones than Griffin."</p><p>"Greg," Leena reminded, before pausing to think, "Greg Mycroft Holmes…"</p><p>"No," he shot it down easily, her suggestion for their child's name, knowing she was teasing and wouldn't be cross with the quickfire dismissal, "I already gave the perfect name for a boy."</p><p>Leena snorted, knowing he hadn't given her serious names for boys as he was fully convinced it would be a girl, "We're <em>not</em> naming him Smaug."</p><p>~8~</p><p>Leena looked up from her phone as she sat in Sherlock's armchair, watching him pace across the floor while a client chattered on about his mystery. She caught his eye and held up 2 fingers, letting him know that two more reports had come in for 'break ins' that identified damaged property in the form of a plaster bust of Margaret Thatcher. She'd had a program on her phone to alert her if any of those four words came up when a break in was reported, plaster, bust, Margaret, Thatcher. She'd gotten two hits now since the first one at the Welsborough's.</p><p>It was clear and confirmed now, someone was looking for something hidden inside the busts. They'd have to reach out to one of their contacts and see if they could trace the connection between the busts. She could probably do it, but her program was on her phone and it would take forever to go back into someone's records and track something like that, connect it to other busts.</p><p>She glanced at the door, able to hear two people talking and shook her head, Lestrade and Hopkins were both there, likely waiting to give Sherlock a case since he was with a client at the moment. Neither of them were being particularly quiet, which she could see was irritating Sherlock. He had a thing about too much stupid being in a room and if he could hear you, you were in the room.</p><p>He stormed over to the door and pulled it open, "Will you two please keep it down?!" he snapped, before slamming it in their faces. He turned with a huff, irritated, though she knew it was more from the current client than the detectives outside. As soon as she told him about the third bust he wanted to get right out there and find the connection between the four of them. But the client was already halfway through his spiel and with the two detectives outside, the chances of being able to do so were dwindling.</p><p>He moved over to the chair she was resting on, moving behind it and crossing his arms to rest on the back of the chair, facing the man before them on a chair.</p><p>He was a quite unassuming man, in grey trousers and a pale short sleeved shirt, trying to give the bare minimum of personal detail to his case, though it didn't amount to much when Sherlock could gather your entire life's story from a glimpse.</p><p>"Now, you haven't always been in life insurance, have you?" Sherlock cut in, "You started out in manual labor. Oh, don't bother being astonished. Your right hand's almost an entire size bigger than your left," he gestured at the man's hands, one appearing slightly bigger than the other, "Hard manual work does that."</p><p>"Carpentry?" Leena made her own guess of it.</p><p>"Yeah," the man blinked, "I WAS a carpenter, uh, like me dad."</p><p>"And you're trying to give up smoking, unsuccessfully," Sherlock added, "And you once had a Japanese girlfriend that meant a lot to you but now you feel indifferent about."</p><p>"How the hell…" the man began, when Leena patted over her heart and the man looked down at the pocket on his shirt where some e-cigarettes were just poking through the top of it, "Ah. E-cigarettes."</p><p>"Not just that, ten individual e-cigarettes. Now, if you just wanted to smoke indoors, you would have invested in one of those irritating electronic pipe things, but you're convinced you can give up, so you don't want to buy a pipe because that means you're not serious about quitting, so instead you buy individual cigarettes, always sure that each will be your last. Anything to add, John?" he glanced over at where John should have been sitting in his armchair, only to see a red balloon with a John-like face drawn on it was floating there instead, "John?"</p><p>"Kitchen," Leena informed him, and not a moment later the real John poked his head out from the doorway.</p><p>"Er, yeah, yeah, listening," John waved him on.</p><p>"What is that?" Sherlock pointed at the balloon.</p><p>"That is me. Well, it's a me-substitute."</p><p>"You know I value your little contributions," Sherlock tried to salvage his embarrassment at not having realized John had walked off.</p><p>"Oh, Sherwood," Leena reached up to pat his arm, "It's been there since nine in the morning."</p><p>"Has it?" Sherlock blinked, before looking at John, "Where were you?"</p><p>"Helping Mrs. H with her Sudoku," John spoke, "Then," he stepped out of the kitchen with a sandwich on a plate with a bit of jelly set up like ketchup next to it, "Made Jackie an egg sandwich."</p><p>"Ooh, thank you, John!" Leena beamed when he stepped over and handed it to her.</p><p>"You…got my wife a sandwich," Sherlock frowned at him.</p><p>"Yeah," John shrugged, it wasn't a big deal, it really wasn't.</p><p>"Why did you get my wife a sandwich?"</p><p>"Cos she was hungry?"</p><p>"No, why did YOU get my wife a sandwich? <em>I</em> should be the only one getting my wife a sandwich. MY wife."</p><p>John nodded, amused at how petulant Sherlock sounded just then, "Right, you can get her the ice cream she'll be wanting after the sandwich."</p><p>Leena eyed him, "How'd you know I'd want ice cream?"</p><p>John smiled at them, "You both tracked what Mary had cravings of," he spoke, though there was a bit of regret in his voice.</p><p>He'd had a hard time being around Mary for much of her pregnancy, hadn't done a good job as husband to her after finding out she'd lied about her entire life to him. He tried to make up for it now, being a good husband and father, but Leena and Sherlock had done so much for her. Leena went and had lunch with her every day to make sure she was eating, texting Sherlock all the things Mary even mentioned having a craving about so he could bring it round when he'd come pick her up for a stroll back to 221B. They both took such good care of his wife when he'd lacked the ability to, he wanted to make up for it by returning the favor.</p><p>"I paid attention to what Jackie seemed to like, too."</p><p>"Thank you, John," Leena smiled at him, "And thank you because this sandwich is delicious!"</p><p>"Little bit of horseradish in the eggs," he smirked, pleased he'd noticed something about Leena's habits that maybe Sherlock hadn't.</p><p>Leena just hummed appreciatively and dipped her sandwich in the jelly to munch on.</p><p>"Er, sorry," their client cut in, "What about my girlfriend?"</p><p>"What?" Sherlock looked at the man, already plotting at least 12 ways to one-up John making her a sandwich.</p><p>"You said I had an ex."</p><p>"It's your tattoo," Leena told him.</p><p>"It's Japanese and says 'Akako,'" Sherlock added, back on his roll, "But you haven't gotten rid of it after the first attempt to have it removed so it doesn't bother you either way to have it there or not."</p><p>The man chuckled a bit, "Sorry. I…I thought you'd done something clever."</p><p>John did his level best to hide his laugh in a cough behind his hand at how Sherlock AND Leena had reacted to the man's statement. While Sherlock turned to glare at the man for the insult, Leena had frozen, her food half stuck in her mouth, mid-bite, and just looked at the man, shaking her head a moment, before finally resuming finishing the act of biting the sandwich to chew on it.</p><p>"No, no," the man continued to chuckle, "Ah, but now you've explained it, it's dead simple, innit?"</p><p>Sherlock stood from behind the chair, straightening and stepping around it, taking a deep breath and looking at the man seriously, "I've withheld this information from you until now, Mr. Kingsley, but I think it's time you knew the truth."</p><p>"What d'you mean?" the man frowned, not seeing Leena and John exchanging an amused look behind Sherlock's back.</p><p>"Have you ever wondered if your wife was a little bit out of your league?"</p><p>"Well…" the man spoke, actually seeming about to gesture to Leena and Sherlock, as though to say they were in the same boat, which had Leena nearly choking on her sandwich and John physically biting his fist to keep from laughing and interrupting Sherlock.</p><p>"You thought she was having an affair. I'm afraid it's far worse than that. Your wife is a spy."</p><p>"What?!" Kingsley gasped.</p><p>"That's right," he nodded, beginning his assessment as he slowly made his way towards the man, "Her real name is Greta Bengtsdotter. Swedish by birth and probably the most dangerous spy in the world. She's been operating deep undercover for the past four years now as your wife for one reason only: to get near the American embassy which is across the road from your flat. Tomorrow the US president will be at the embassy as part of an official state visit. As the president greets members of staff, Greta Bengtsdotter, disguised as a twenty-two stone cleaner, will inject the president in the back of the neck with a dangerous new drug hidden inside a secret compartment inside her padded armpit. This drug will then render the president entirely susceptible to the will of their new master, none other than James Moriarty."</p><p>"What?!"</p><p>"Moriarty will then use the president as a pawn to destabilize the United Nations General Assembly which is due to vote on a nuclear non-proliferation treaty, tipping the balance in favor of a first strike policy against Russia. This chain of events will then prove unstoppable, thus precipitating…" he took a breath, leaning into Kingsley's face and enunciating the last words for dramatic effect, "World War Three."</p><p>John chuckled, finally familiar enough with Sherlock…or at least Leena, to see he was completely fabricating all of that. Leena would be more serious if it was true than the smile on her face right now, "Are you serious?" he asked, for the benefit of the client.</p><p>"No, of course not," he scoffed, straightening and moving to the door, "His wife left him because his breath stinks and he likes to wear her lingerie."</p><p>"I don't!" Kingsley defended.</p><p>"I can see the bra strap outline through your shirt," Leena called over, turning to set the now empty plate on the table near her.</p><p>"Well…it's…it's JUST the bras!" the man defended.</p><p>Sherlock shook his head and opened the door, "Get out."</p><p>Kingsley got up and hurried out of the room, red with embarrassment, Sherlock not even giving the two detectives waiting outside a moment to speak before he slammed the door shut on them too.</p><p>"So, what's this all about, then?" John asked.</p><p>"He's just having a bit of fun," Leena remarked, standing up and twisting a bit to stretch out her back, her left hand absently coming behind her to rub at a small knot that formed.</p><p>"Fun?"</p><p>"While I can," Sherlock agreed, about to step over to Leena when Hopkins opened the door and stepped in, "Borgia Pearl," he guessed before she spoke, "Boring, go," and pushed her towards the door, shutting the door behind her…only for Lestrade to do as she'd done and open it, coming right on in, "Oh, this had better be good," he muttered, moving over to Leena and turning her slightly so he could use the knuckles of his hand to kneed the area she wasn't quite managing to work out.</p><p>Lestrade smirked at the domestic sight and reached into a paper bag he'd brought with him, "Oh, I think you'll like it," and pulled out a clear plastic bag…</p><p>"Thatcher bust?" Leena guessed before he could fully pull it out.</p><p>The man actually pouted when he held it up to reveal exactly that, the shattered pieces of one anyway.</p><p>"That is the bust, isn't it?" John reached out to take it, "The one that was broken."</p><p>"Nope!" Leena called when Lestrade moved to answer.</p><p>He sighed and nodded, "No, it isn't. It's another one; different owner, different part of town. You were right!" he turned to the two of them, Leena having submitted a preliminary report of what they suspected for him to keep an eye out for any other reports, perhaps one that hadn't gone through the electronic filing system yet, "This is a…this is a thing. Something's going on."</p><p>Sherlock reached out to take the bag, looking down at the fractured pieces, grim.</p><p>"What's wrong?" Lestrade eyed him, "I thought you'd be pleased."</p><p>"He is," Leena said, "That's his game face."</p><p>That had Sherlock smirking, "And the game is on."</p><p>Leena took a deep breath, <em>A</em> game was on, she was sure of that. She just wasn't so certain it was THE game he was waiting on from Moriarty. This was too…rough, it lacked the finesse that Moriarty would have put into his plans. But, she had to concede, she could be wrong, if Moriarty was trying to act out one final game from beyond the grave, he very well <em>could</em> be putting up all the wrong signals, trying to confuse them, let their guard down that 'it couldn't be him' and have him hit where it really hurt.</p><p>Either way, whoever was behind this, it was a game and it had to be solved. So while Sherlock headed to the kitchen to examine the plaster, she got to work drafting up her preliminary profile. There were a few things she needed to work through and putting it to paper would help her sift through the contradicting things she was seeing and thinking.</p><p>~8~</p><p>John and Lestrade stood in the doorway of the kitchen, watching Sherlock examine a piece of the plaster under his microscope while Lestrade explained more about the mounting case, "Another two have been smashed since the Welsborough one. One belonging to Mr. Mohandes Hassan…"</p><p>"Identical busts?" John guessed.</p><p>"Yeah, and this one to a Dr. Barnicot in Holborn. Three in total," he glanced at his watch, "God knows who'd wanna do something like this."</p><p>"Yeah, well some people have that complex, don't they?" John shrugged, "An idée fixe," he glanced at Sherlock, "They obsess over one thing and they can't let it go…"</p><p>And wasn't that Sherlock in a nutshell, but in various ways. He could obsess over a case to the bitter end, or he could obsess over a single aspect of his life he wanted to get perfect or, in the case of Leena, obsess over a single person for more than 20 years. Though, he had to admit, that last one was probably the only reason Sherlock even somewhat resembled a human being at times.</p><p>"Well we're not dealing with a monomaniac at least," Leena called, stepping over with her laptop, grateful the kitchen hadn't been used for any experiments in the last few days so she could join them without gagging, "Like we pointed out before, there were other images of Thatcher at the Welsborough's, if it was that they would have smashed the other likenesses of her too. And that doesn't fit the profile," she held up her laptop, "They're looking for something specifically related to the busts. It's not for enjoyment or they'd go anywhere and smash any old bust of her. It's not for risk, they'd make it more obvious they were breaking in. It's not even obsession, otherwise they'd have kept the pieces as a trophy. There has to be something hidden IN the busts that they're searching for."</p><p>Sherlock merely pointed at her, his thoughts exactly, when something caught his eye under the scope, "Ooh."</p><p>"What?" John asked, considering Leena's words, it did make sense how she described it. If the person wanted to risk getting caught, they wouldn't have smashed the security or been so careful the family didn't realize till morning what happened.</p><p>"Blood," Sherlock said, moving the sample to better see it, "Quite a bit of it, too."</p><p>"No injury at the scene, I assume?" Leena glanced at Lestrade as he checked his watch again.</p><p>"No," he answered.</p><p>"Then it's the unsub…er, the suspect," Leena said, "His blood."</p><p>"His?" John turned to her.</p><p>"Statistically it's more likely to be a man," Leena shrugged.</p><p>Sherlock picked up a set of tweezers to put the blood-stained part into a small bag, "Come on," he stood, heading for the door with it.</p><p>"Holborn?" Lestrade guessed, thinking Sherlock might need to use the resources there.</p><p>"Lambeth," he shook his head.</p><p>"We're going to see Toby?" Leena beamed at that, closing her laptop with a snap and setting it to the side as he nodded.</p><p>"Who?" John asked.</p><p>"You'll see," Sherlock waved it off.</p><p>"Right," John sighed, before turning to Lestrade, "You coming?"</p><p>"No," Sherlock cut in, "He's got a lunch date with a brunette forensic officer that he doesn't want to be late for."</p><p>"Jackie did you…" Lestrade began, turning to her almost accusingly.</p><p>"The right sleeve of your jacket," Sherlock kept on, nodding at where there was a long strand of brown hair on his sleeve, "Plus the formaldehyde mixed with your cologne," he grimaced at the smell so common among forensic officers.</p><p>"And you keep looking at your watch," Leena added, pulling a light coat on and patting Lestrade on the arm, "Have fun."</p><p>He smiled, "I will," and headed for the door too.</p><p>"Trust me, though, she's not right for you," Sherlock called, absently texting to make sure it was alright to stop over for Toby.</p><p>"What?" Lestrade frowned, turning to face him.</p><p>"She's not the one."</p><p>"Well, thank you, Mystic Meg," Lestrade huffed, leaving.</p><p>"How'd you work all that out?" John asked Sherlock.</p><p>"She's got three children in Rio that he doesn't know about," Sherlock murmured.</p><p>"Are you just making this up?"</p><p>"Possibly."</p><p>"Office gossip," Leena answered instead, smiling when John seemed to realize <em>that</em> was how Sherlock really knew what Lestrade was up to. She had gotten back into working for the Yard after Sherlock had returned, in between solving cases with him and helping John and Mary with their wedding and falling out. It wasn't quite freelance, she was on their payroll, but more…consulting, for lack of a better word. She would stop in two or three times a week, check in if there were any cases they needed help working out the criminal behind, not the scene or the victim, but more to narrow down their list of suspects. She would catch up, sometimes, on the few people she actually liked at the Yard.</p><p>Anderson was especially interesting to run into. He really <em>had</em> done a complete 180 from how he first viewed Sherlock. She really would not be surprised to find a shrine of the man somewhere in Anderson's house one day. The man chatted with her every time she was there, just checking in, apologizing, going over his own take on the cases they solved and offering help if they ever needed it.</p><p>Not that they would, for as much as he changed, she would never forget how he and Donovan treated Sherlock, the role they'd had in driving him to the point where the only way to stop Moriarty was to fake his death. She'd gotten two of the three involved fired, he should count himself very lucky she'd approved of Lestrade to bring him back on the Yard even in a reduced capacity.</p><p>"She does have children though," she added, tugging her hair out of the back of her coat, "Full custody of them, doesn't talk about them much. Keeps her work and life separate so it may be a bit of a shock for Greg if he finds out."</p><p>"Ok," John nodded, following them to the door, "So who's Toby?"</p><p>~8~</p><p>"There's a kid I know, hacker," Sherlock spoke as they got out of a cab and headed up the drive to a small house, "Brilliant hacker, one of the world's best."</p><p>Leena snorted, "Penny could give him a run for his money," she remarked. In her opinion, one Penelope Garcia was THE best hacker there was.</p><p>"He got himself into serious trouble with the Americans a couple of years ago," Sherlock continued, "He hacked into the Pentagon's security system. Leena assisted me in getting him off the charge. Therefore he owes us a favor."</p><p>"Part of the agreement was that he not use his hacking for 'evil,'" Leena explained, using quotey fingers, "But that he assist with criminal investigations instead."</p><p>"Using his powers for good," John chuckled, getting it. It was actually quite a common thing to happen, when a criminal had a very specialized skill set. They would often be brought in as consultants or assist with catching other similar criminals, a way to either reduce the sentence or escape jail completely. Working for the 'good guys' was certainly better than being cut off in a jail cell.</p><p>Sherlock grinned as they reached the black door to the flat, reaching out to bang the knocker twice.</p><p>"So, how does that help us?" John asked as they waited.</p><p>"What?" Sherlock glanced over.</p><p>"Toby the hacker."</p><p>Leena smiled, "Toby's not the hacker. Craig is."</p><p>"What?" he frowned in confusion.</p><p>A moment later the door opened and a young man with curly hair and glasses was standing there, mid twenties, bit of stubble, a little bit of a gut to him.</p><p>"Alright, Craig?" Sherlock asked with a smile.</p><p>The man chuckled, "Alright, Sherlock?"</p><p>"Where's Toby?" Leena all but demanded, moving forward.</p><p>A loud 'woof!' rang out and a dog, a large bloodhound, trotted up and began sniffing at Leena.</p><p>"Oh, there's the good boy," she beamed, crouching down to pet him.</p><p>"Very good boy," Sherlock laughed, leaning down to pet the dog as well, startling John for a moment to see the man so thrilled with another being, especially an animal.</p><p>"Hiya!" another voice called, and Mary stepped out of the house, with Hamish in her arms.</p><p>"Mary?" John blinked at her, "What are you…" he let out a huff, holding up his hands when the fact that she had Hamish with her hit him, "No, we…we agreed we would never bring Mish out on a case."</p><p>"HAMISH," Mary emphasized, taking delight in using her son's full name to wind up her husband, who had tried every variation he could think of under the sun short of using 'Sherlock' to make their son's name seem more 'normal,' before she nodded, "Is not going on a case with us," she spoke, reaching out to hand the boy to John, "Don't wait up," she winked before turning to the Holmeses, "Hey."</p><p>"Hey," Sherlock greeted.</p><p>John, though, was still in shock, "But Mary, what are you <em>doing</em> here?"</p><p>"She's better at this than you," Sherlock said simply.</p><p>"Better?"</p><p>"So I texted her."</p><p>"Hang on. <em>Mary's</em> better than me?"</p><p>"Save a life, call John," Leena remarked as she stood, Toby's leash in hand, "Hunt down a criminal, call Mary."</p><p>Sherlock nodded, "She IS a retired super-agent with a terrifying skill set. Of course she's better."</p><p>"Yeah," John had to concede to that, "Ok."</p><p>"Nothing personal."</p><p>"What, so I'm supposed to just go home now, am I?"</p><p>"Oh, what do you think?" Mary turned to Leena, linking her arm through the other woman's, "Shall we take him with us?"</p><p>"He <em>is</em> quite handy and very loyal," Leena mused, though petting the dog as she spoke made John wonder if she meant him or Toby.</p><p>"Barnicot's house, then," Sherlock looked over, seeing that John would actually be joining them with Hamish, "Anyone up for a trudge?" he grinned when Toby barked, perking up and hurrying forward, reaching out to take the leash from Leena as Toby could be…quite enthusiastic on the hunt, "Keep up. He's fast!"</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I feel like I need to start with Leena being pregnant.</p><p>I tried to foreshadow that she would be pregnant very closely behind Mary, in how close their weddings were and in Mary urging her to have a child soon so hers had a playmate, and with the Liberty figment of Sherlock's imagination teasing him about bringing her into being. I actually agonized over when in this episode Leena would BE pregnant/how pregnant she should be for the duration of it. Because Mary was so far along and so much of the episode had to do with her baby, I didn't want her to be pregnant through the whole thing too because I thought it would be too much baby. But the more I considered it and looked at Leena, the more it actually fit to have her find out the way she did when she did. Sherlock deduced Mary, he did the same with Leena. Mary wanted her to be close behind, she is. And imagining Sherlock and John having to deal with TWO pregnant women? O.O The more I thought about it like that, the more Leena's pregnancy fit. And I was dying to have that be the reason why Sherlock as 'high on life' during the briefing, it just fit so well since he doesn't touch drugs due to Leena and I felt that really would be something that would get him reacting in a similar way. Leena threw up on the plane, Leena never throws up on the plane, therefore Leena must be pregnant :) I'm going to add a timeline at the end of the note for how I saw the episode going to give an idea of Mary and Leena's pregnancies, and Hamish's growth.</p><p>Now, for the other baby, for Rosie (in the show) now being Hamish (in the story). From what I understand of conception, we are who we are because we were conceived at the exact moment we were conceived, the exact month/day/hour/minute, and if that conception was delayed, even 5 minutes, we would not be who we are. That's my rationale for Hamish. I know sometimes a critique of my stories is that the OC being there doesn't change enough. In my mind, Leena being there does affect not just Sherlock's life but John's too. It's not just John grieving that Mary is there for, but Leena's too, it's not just John she spends time with but Leena and John with Leena too during that time when Sherlock was absent.</p><p>Let's say, in the show, since Sherlock has Leena assist him during some investigations maybe she was there instead of John and he and Mary are intimate earlier than would have happened, or maybe Leena being there helps a case go faster and John can be with Mary sooner, or Leena is helping Mary plan the wedding and because of her help things either take longer or shorter. It cannot be Rosie, not as we know her, it may not even be girl that's conceived at that point. </p><p>Part of me wanted it to be a Hamish, because of how much Sherlock wanted it (wanted one single boy he would trust around his daughter, if he had a daughter), another part wanted a Rosie because if Sherlock had a daughter they'd be best mates or more. But I didn't feel like that could be the only reason to change it, I really gave it a lot of thought to WHY it would change and HOW it would change and what could have happened to change it. A bigger part of me just kept coming back to Mary's own friendship with Leena, and how Leena being there DOES change things in ways not directly related to Sherlock. And my gut kept telling me, if it's not a Rosie it's a Hamish lol.</p><p>...and another part said that Mary would love Hamish as a name, because it came from John, and she would very much force the man who missed 59 calls and caused her to give birth in a car on the side of the road to accept their son is now Hamish and it wouldn't have been if he'd answered his damn phone! lol :) John would have to grin and bear it because he brought it on himself not checking his phone when his wife is about to pop.</p><p>Timeline:</p><p>May 18, 2014 - Mary finds out she's pregnant at her wedding, I'm going to assume she was far enough along for some symptoms to be noticeable, so that puts it at about 3-4 weeks, let's say 1 month along.<br/>December 25, 2014 (thereabouts) - Christmas at the Holmes' family cottage. Mary is about 8 to 8.5 months pregnant by the end of December.<br/>January 1, 2015, (thereabouts) - Just after the new year, Sherlock and Leena are 'banished' and return within hours. Leena finds out she's pregnant, assuming the same as with Mary, she's about 3-4 weeks along by this point, so 1 month at the start of January.<br/>Mid January - 2ish weeks have passed, Mary is now 9 months along, ready to pop, and soon gives birth, Leena is about 6ish weeks along.<br/>March 1, 2015 - About 6 weeks after Hamish is born, the baptism happens. Leena is now 3 months along.<br/>Mid April - A sequence of raising Hamish and investigating crimes, enough where the Watsons feel the brunt of being parents. Leena is about 4.5 months along.<br/>Near the end of April - Sherlock first discovers the busts being destroyed. Leena is closer to 5 months along.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. The Six Thatchers: Liberty</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>John was quite regretting popping into the one shop on the way of following Toby to buy a baby carrier now that he and Hamish were joining the case. He didn't want to run around the city, or however far they were running, with Hamish just in his arms. God forbid something happened, he wanted both hands to protect his son with. He regretted it, because he was standing there, Hamish strapped to his front, doing absolutely <em>nothing</em>.</p><p>Toby had plopped himself down near a phone box and was just sitting there, Mary holding the leash now, Sherlock and Leena standing around, all of them waiting for <em>something</em> to happen.</p><p>It had been fifteen minutes now.</p><p>"He's not moving," John remarked, bobbing slightly to keep Hamish occupied and content.</p><p>"He's thinking," Sherlock defended the dog.</p><p>Mary glanced over at Leena who was watching Sherlock crouch down to pet Toby as he'd done nearly every two minutes, not that anyone at all noticed. She gave the woman a nod at Sherlock, as though to ask if this was normal.</p><p>Leena glanced at him to make sure he was distracted, before mouthing 'It's Christmas' to her, which had Mary nearly laughing though she just managed to hold back. Toby whined when Sherlock stopped petting him, so the man, of course, <em>had</em> to resume. It was the law.</p><p>"He's really not moving," John repeated, getting a little antsy now. It was all well and good when they were rushing about and his mind was occupied, but standing there gave him too much time to think about how he probably should not be doing this with his son on his chest, investigating or tracking someone down. Any distraction at all right now that would keep him from thinking about how he was a terrible father for doing this he'd take.</p><p>"Slow but sure, John, not dissimilar to yourself," Sherlock continued to defend.</p><p>"You just like this dog, don't you?" John asked what they all knew.</p><p>"Well, I like <em>you</em>."</p><p>"He <em>loves</em> dogs," Leena spoke, leaning down to pet the dog behind his ears again, "Redbeard was wonderful."</p><p>Sherlock looked over at her for that. Whenever she brought up his beloved dog, it was different than when Mycroft did. Mycroft always brought up Redbeard to irritate him, to strike at him, hurt him or upset him in some way. Leena would bring up Redbeard with fondness, to make him smile at the good memories.</p><p>Though, now, when she did…his mind would drift to Blackbeard, the other figment of his Mind Palace imagination, locked away under the tight safe he kept for dreams and hopes for the future.</p><p>There were surprisingly few things left in the safe. Each year it seemed like Leena, being with her, made one more dream and hope come true.</p><p>"He's still not moving," Mary remarked with a yawn.</p><p>"Fascinating," Sherlock murmured, "He must be <em>very</em> focused."</p><p>Leena shook her head, moving her hand from Toby's head to the back of Sherlock's, running her fingers through his hair for a single pass before she moved them to her pockets.</p><p>"So," John bobbed a bit more, "What's the profile?"</p><p>"Hmm?" Leena looked up at him.</p><p>"Might as well," Mary shrugged, "Not much else to do while we wait. You've got one drawn up, yeah?"</p><p>Leena nodded, "Preliminary, but yeah."</p><p>"So what is it?" John asked, "What are we looking for?"</p><p>"There's a high chance it's <em>not</em> related to Moriarty," she began, deciding it would be better to get that out of the way first. It had the desired effect, Sherlock stood and frowned.</p><p>"A high chance?"</p><p>She nodded, "This doesn't match with the profile of him. I mean, it…COULD be him, because he <em>could</em> be trying to fool us, like he did when he pretended to be Molly's gay boyfriend, throw us off."</p><p>"But you don't think it is," Sherlock realized.</p><p>"I don't, Sherwood."</p><p>He took a deep breath and nodded, he'd had the sneaking suspicion that he'd jumped the gun to linking this to Moriarty, a part of him both curious for what posthumous game the mastermind might have come up with and wanting it over with so he'd know, without a doubt, that his family was safe, "What's the profile?"</p><p>She reached out and took his hand, squeezing it in apology that it wasn't the big game he thought it would be, "This doesn't have the same finesse as Moriarty, even as a planner he was very specific on the men and women he employed and worked with. Everything was to a T and this…this isn't quite the same level. The unsub is very observant, he studies the places he's breaking into. He doesn't want to be caught, he doesn't want the risk of being found. But he IS willing to risk his life to obtain whatever he's after that's hidden in those busts."</p><p>"Makes sense," Mary nodded along, "If I was going after something, I'd scope it ahead of time, learn the layout, the security, get in and get out, no muss no fuss."</p><p>Leena glanced at her a moment, continuing when Sherlock squeezed her hand, "He's highly trained," she continued, unable to help making connections to the profile she'd drafted and Mary's own skillset now, "But not in burglary. This isn't a person who's perfected their craft by robbing other people, there would have been evidence in other cases, a common thread building up to this. This one is new."</p><p>"So it's a…what, ex-cop?" John tried to guess, "Someone familiar with it, maybe from the other side of the lane?"</p><p>"Could be," Leena allowed, "But it would be easier to flash their badge or fake one to get into a house, come up with a false report or case and convince someone they need to confiscate their bust than sneak in and smash it. No, they don't want anyone to know they're looking for something. He'd be average height…"</p><p>"Given the window's height," Sherlock nodded.</p><p>"A bit stronger than the average everyday bloke, works out," Leena continued, "They easily got over the window, into the room, broke the light and ran out without being seen. Agile and used to being quiet, operating as silently as possible to not be caught. Has trust issues too..."</p><p>"How could you know..." John blinked at that.</p><p>"He works alone," Leena answered, pulling all that she'd learned profiling with the BAU into it, "A partner always makes things easier, but he's choosing to do this alone. He can't trust someone else to have his back, hence the extra care he puts in to not get caught. But his fixation on the bust...it's more than obsession. Whatever's hidden in it, it wouldn't surprise me if HE put it there. Likely also able to blend in easily."</p><p>"In order to watch the homes he's breaking into without inspiring suspicion or displaying stalker like behavior," Sherlock remarked, earning a small smile from Leena for how he was elaborating her profile, explaining how she'd come to some of the conclusions she had. It was a display, he knew, of how well they both knew the other and how much attention they paid each other. He knew she had picked up quite a few tricks on how to make deductions like he did, it seemed he too had picked up a few tricks for how to identify the criminal.</p><p>"I would also guess he has a very good memory," Leena added, "For an average person it would take more than one go or pass to memorize a location. He wouldn't risk being caught or noticed. One pass, maybe two, would have to be enough. I would say short hair, very short, this level of dedication means he would leave as little evidence, if any, behind, including DNA. Very specialized training."</p><p>"A rogue agent."</p><p>"Yes," she nodded, "Government is likely, if they know how to elude the police to this extreme. Hard to find that level of training outside the government or military."</p><p>Sherlock looked over at Leena for that, noting the glance she gave to Mary and catching her gaze when she looked back, 'You don't think…' his expression read.</p><p>The way she dipped her head to the side could only be, 'It might.'</p><p>She cleared her throat and continued on, "But that's not what I'm worried about," she looked at the Watsons, "This level of obsession gives way easily to desperation. Whatever he's looking for, he hasn't found it, and the longer he doesn't find it, the more unhinged he'll become. The more anxious and angry. He won't wait so long between break ins, he won't plan it out as well, someone will notice...and he will stop them noticing. He's going to escalate, and soon. And once he hits that point, things will get much worse and he will be harder to stop, because what he wants will be more important to him than secrecy or evasion or even his own life."</p><p>With the people before her, much like with her team in America, she didn't have to say out loud what she feared: next time, someone might die.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Eventually Toby picked up the scent of the blood on the plaster and began to lead them through the town, along the roads, near the shops, until they made it all the way to the Southwark area of London, right into the Borough Market…until he stopped, right before a large pool of blood on the ground that had sawdust covering it to soak up the slipperiness of it.</p><p>"The butcher," Leena sighed, seeing a door to the stall open, a man with a pig carcass thrown over his shoulder walking past. There were butchers everywhere, all walking across the pool of blood, which was a combination of all the different animals seeping out of their stalls. Already someone was there trying to sweep up the mess.</p><p>"Clever," Sherlock frowned at the sight.</p><p>Mary, though, shrugged, "Well, if you were wounded and you knew you were leaving a trail, where would you go?"</p><p>Leena glanced over at her for the remark, for how that was instantly where her mind went, adding it to the profile she was truly regretting making, before she caught Sherlock's eye for it.</p><p>'He could be rogue,' his expression read, catching the line of her thoughts for he was thinking the same in how similar Mary's reasoning and hypothetical actions were to their suspect's.</p><p>She shook her head, 'Moriarty wouldn't risk it,' she told him with the motion.</p><p>The person they were tracking <em>could</em> have been working for Moriarty, <em>could</em> have been deviating from the plan made before the man's death. But she didn't think it was. Moriarty would pick someone he <em>knew</em> would carry it out to a T, he was a narcissist, he wanted his plan done HIS way, with no chance someone else would get credit for it. No, this was something unique, something unrelated to Moriarty, she was sure of it now.</p><p>"Like hiding a tree in a forest," John quipped, unaware of their silent moment.</p><p>"Or blood in a butcher's," Sherlock sighed, crouching down to pat the dog on the head, "Never mind, Toby. Better luck next time, hmm?"</p><p>John nearly snorted at how he was showing more understanding to the dog than he had to other detectives who made mistakes. He really did love dogs didn't he?</p><p>"This could be it, though," Sherlock stood, "This could be the one."</p><p>Leena merely reached out to take his hand, knowing why, this time in particular, he was having a hard time accepting the profile and the idea that this wasn't Moriarty completely. He loved games, he loved, puzzles, the more convoluted and odd and complicated the better. But this was more than that. Anyone else would think he was just eager for the next great puzzle, the next challenge Moriarty could give him because it was bound to be stunning. But she knew better.</p><p>He wanted it over.</p><p>He wanted the threat of Moriarty finally dealt with and cleared.</p><p>He had faked his death for two years to dismantle the man's crime base so that he could come back to London, to a London safe for her and John, safe from Moriarty's threats. There was one last puzzle, one last game Moriarty could play, and he wanted it finished. He wanted the threat and shadow of a man who could truly harm the family Sherlock had built to be gone.</p><p>To find out this may not be the case he was waiting for…he really wanted that to not be true.</p><p>"But it's not Moriarty," John said, full belief in Leena's profile, "Jackie said…"</p><p>"There's always room for error," Leena tried to brush it off, knowing Sherlock would need true and real proof in front of him this one time to believe it wasn't Moriarty.</p><p>If there was a way to explain even a small part of this being connected to the man, Sherlock would latch onto it.</p><p>"It could be him," Sherlock muttered, looking around, "It's too bizarre, it's too baroque. It's designed to beguile me, tease me, lure me in. At last, a noose for me to put my neck into."</p><p>"Jacks…" John began, hesitant, when Sherlock strode away to see if he could examine more of the market for clues.</p><p>"He wants it over," she turned to them, reaching out to lightly grab Hamish's hand as he flailed it, smiling sadly at the boy and over to his parents, "We're not safe so long as Moriarty is a threat."</p><p>The Watsons nodded slowly, understanding Sherlock's rejection of the profile, his insistence that THIS could be the case. This was the only one that came up that was so wide spread, so connected to other distant cases. He wanted it to be the one, so he could solve it and be done with it, and know he'd protected not just his own wife and child, but his best friend and his as well.</p><p>"Then we help him," Mary determined, "Solve this, and solve the real one too."</p><p>Leena smiled at them, for John was nodding, serious and determined beside her, so very thankful that she and Sherlock had such wonderful friends.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Leena and Sherlock stood in a small room of Craig's house, the man at his computer, hacking away, while John and Mary went home to get Hamish his meal and put him to a nap.</p><p>"Have you heard of that thing, in Germany?" Craig asked absently as he typed away.</p><p>Leena laughed, "There's a lot happening in Germany, Craig, which one?"</p><p>"'Ostalgie.' People who miss the old days under the Communists. People are weird, aren't they?"</p><p>"If they weren't, we'd be out of a job," Leena remarked.</p><p>"Ok," Craig nodded, his search finished, "According to this, there's quite a market for Cold War memorabilia, Thatcher, Reagan, Stalin. Time's a great leveler, innit? Thatcher's like, I dunno, Napoleon now."</p><p>"Yes, fascinating, irrelevant," Sherlock waved it off, squinting at the computer readings, "Where exactly did they come from?"</p><p>Craig had been tracking the purchase orders for the three Thatcher busts, where they'd come from, who made them, when they were made, all of them from the same supplier.</p><p>"I've got into the records of the suppliers, Gelder &amp; Co. Seems they're from Georgia," Craig answered.</p><p>"Tbilisi," Leena murmured, bringing up an image of a map she'd memorized in her minds eye, before something caught her attention on the screen, "Those three busts…they were the same batch!"</p><p>"Batch of six," Craig corrected, "One to Welsborough, one to Hassan, one to Doctor Barnicot. Two to Miss Orrie Harker…"</p><p>"She'll be next," Leena assumed, "He wants to find something, he has a better go when it's two for one."</p><p>Sherlock nodded, reaching into his coat to grab his phone as it rang.</p><p>"One to a Mr. Jack Sandeford of Reading," Craig finished.</p><p>"Lestrade, another one?" Sherlock guessed as he answered the phone.</p><p>"Yeah," Leena could hear the man respond.</p><p>"Harker?"</p><p>"Yeah," Lestrade repeated, "And…"</p><p>"Murder?" Leena cut in, leaning over to speak to the phone as well.</p><p>"It's murder this ti…<em>how</em>?" Lestrade sighed.</p><p>"Fits the profile," Leena sighed, "He's escalating," she looked at Sherlock, the man growing serious now.</p><p>Because if their suspect had escalated to murder now...and had gone through 5 of the 6 statues…there would be nothing, absolutely <em>nothing</em>, he wouldn't do to get to the last one. No property he wouldn't damage, no risk he wouldn't take, no person he wouldn't harm.</p><p>They had to stop him, because there was no telling what he'd do when he got what he wanted.</p><p>~8~</p><p>"I don't think it's the Black Pearl," Leena stated as the cab drove through town, not even needing to look at Sherlock's phone to know that was what he was searching on it.</p><p>"Georgia…" Sherlock began.</p><p>She turned to smile at him, "You don't think Mycroft would have been investigating this himself if it <em>really</em> had a chance of being the pearl?" she shook her head, "And Moriarty wouldn't be so…" she searched for the right word, "Haphazard about this."</p><p>"What do you mean?" he sat back, pocketing his phone. He knew victims and crime scenes, but her specialty had always been the criminal, it was why they worked so well.</p><p>"The pearl wasn't important to him," Leena began, thinking of all she knew about Moriarty, "It wasn't worthy of obsession. Someone like him would have found the pearl already if he'd <em>really</em> wanted it. It wasn't valuable. He had the chance to steal the crown jewels for god's sake and he just sat there wearing them."</p><p>Sherlock had to nod at that, there were many more priceless things to be stolen than the pearl.</p><p>"He thrived in the shadows, being a name and a whisper but never seen," she continued, "Him finding the pearl would have been everywhere. He would have, at the very least, orchestrated for someone else to find it, so he could organize for someone to steal it. He's dead, there's no thrill in stealing something when he can't enjoy the notoriety and prestige that comes with it among the underground crime circles. He'd rather it stay lost and thrive in the knowledge that HE could have found it but now no one ever will," she rolled her eyes at that last part, which made Sherlock smirk at the implication she thought he would find it one day since he was very much not a 'no one' compared to Moriarty's intelligence and skill, "And those busts…" she added, "They were only made six years ago. If it was Moriarty, he would have found a much more…interesting place to hide them. He would have made a real game out of it if this were him. I'm sorry, Locksley," she reached out to take his hand, "I don't see Moriarty or the pearl in this, but someone and something else."</p><p>"Who?" Sherlock murmured, knowing he really should give up the hope it was Moriarty. Much like Leena tried to keep objective to not skew a profile, he needed to look at this without searching for Moriarty at each turn or he might see something he wanted to see at a scene instead of what was actually there, "What?"</p><p>"I can venture a guess, but this is…" she shook her head, "This is too important to be wrong or to let my guess sway your deductions or my profile. We need more information."</p><p>He let out a long breath, but nodded, understanding. He didn't need her to say her guess out loud to know what she feared.</p><p>The way this burglar was acting…compared to statements and logical points brought up by someone very likeminded to the individual, who may have had that same specialized training Leena mentioned, who had the same skill sets…it was obvious who she feared it might be. And if she was right, and he had no reason to think she wasn't, it could put someone they both cared for in very serious danger.</p><p>And if they were wrong, it could put even more people in danger if they focused on the wrong area.</p><p>"Can you wait a minute?" he called to the driver as they pulled up to Harker's home, "We won't be a moment."</p><p>Leena got out of the cab, Sherlock after her, the two hurrying to the back garden where they could see some forensic investigators about, taking photos and cataloguing the scene, but being very careful not to touch anything that would throw Sherlock off.</p><p>Leena let out a sad breath when she saw Miss Harker lying face down on the grass, having looked up her profile on the way after it was confirmed it would be this bust's owner. This was clear escalation, with only one final target before the unsub found what he was looking for or went completely mental at not finding it. Either way, it would not be good.</p><p>"Defensive wounds on her face and hands," Lestrade spoke as they approached, "Throat cut, sharp blade."</p><p>"And the two busts smashed," Leena remarked as he nodded.</p><p>"That batch of statues was made in Tbilisi several years ago," Sherlock spoke, "Limited edition of six."</p><p>"And now someone's wandering about destroying 'em all," Lestrade sighed, "Makes no sense. What's the point?"</p><p>"The point is that it's not destruction," Leena looked at him, "Why do children smash their piggy banks?"</p><p>"Cos there's money inside," Lestrade answered, before frowning, "You're not saying there's money hidden in the busts…"</p><p>"No," Sherlock scoffed, "That would be ridiculous."</p><p>"There's<em> something</em> hidden in the bust," Leena explained, "We…can't be sure what, but whoever this is is after that object."</p><p>"And we've just got lucky," Sherlock grinned, "Jack Sandeford of Reading is where we're going next. Congratulations, by the way."</p><p>"I'm sorry?" Lestrade glanced over as they began to leave.</p><p>"Well, you're about to solve a big one!" Sherlock smiled.</p><p>"Yeah, until John publishes his blog."</p><p>"Yeah. 'Til then, basically."</p><p>"If you could contact Jack for us, Greg?" Leena asked, walking backwards to speak to him, "We need clearance into his home, likely through the night."</p><p>Lestrade waved them off, working out they were planning a stakeout of some sort and already making plans to alert the local authorities there to be on call and ready to rush to Sandeford's at a moment's notice. If they caught the burglar in the act, they'd need backup and fast to make sure he stayed caught.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Leena had to admit, she was truly a little surprised that Sherlock was 'allowing' her to join him on this stakeout of sorts, given she was pregnant. But, then again, he did have some conditions. She was to hide in another part of the house, she would call the police as soon as the burglar was spotted, and she would not engage with the burglar under any circumstances.</p><p>She could agree to the first two, the last though...if Sherlock found himself in dire straits, she was <em>not</em> going to just sit idly by and let him be thrashed and had told him, very clearly, that she would bring the small gun Mary had gotten her for Christmas with her in her purse to use to help detain the burglar.</p><p>It had been a...very odd choice of gift from the former assassin. In the sense that she herself wasn't sure how to feel about it. She was a fair shot with a rifle, not so much a small handgun, as was proven when she'd shot the Golem higher up than the knee she'd been aiming for. But Mary wanted her to have <em>something</em> on her person to protect herself with. So she appreciated the gesture, but given the fact it was a gun coming from the person who had shot her husband…maybe a bit too soon to hand her that same sort of weapon.</p><p>Still, it had been a bit of a laugh when <em>she</em> had gotten Sherlock a bulletproof vest and Mary had gotten her a gun, the jokes from John…</p><p>She practically forced Sherlock to wear the vest whenever he left the flat on a case…or to go to the shops…or to just walk around…honestly any time he left the flat at all she tried to get him to wear it. What?! He made a lot of enemies and, as Moriarty proved, he could be shot at any time and, statistically, the body was a larger target than the head and whoever tried to shoot him would have a better chance aiming for his body, therefore, wear the damn vest!</p><p>He didn't always wear it, not in the normal course of a day, but he had given in and agreed to it when they were deep into a case and likely to confront the criminal in question. She prayed every day that he'd never have to use it, but it meant so much to her that he did actually wear it. So she could be a little more at ease now that, if the burglar had a gun, there was a slightly higher chance Sherlock would survive.</p><p>And so she sat in the sitting room of the Sandeford home, Mr. Sandeford being quite cooperative after the call Lestrade had made to him. He understood there was a burglar targeting the batch of Thatcher figurines from which he'd purchased his, that two operatives had been sent to lay a trap and catch this man, and that he and his daughter would be set up in a very comfortable hotel very nearby to ensure their safety. Honestly the man had tried to thrust the bust into their hands to get it out of his house, but they pointed out the burglar may not know if they took it and would still come and the man would not be happy to find it missing and who knew what he would do then, who he would demand information from.</p><p>So the bust remained set up in the kitchen, just on the other side of a series of glass walls that led to the pool. A quick look at the property had given Sherlock the exact point of entry the burglar was likely to use, so he'd set her up on the opposite end of the house, and himself up just behind that point so he could sneak up on the burglar. They just had to be patient.</p><p>But they knew it would be tonight. There had been a little pattern that formed since the first bust. There were less days between smashings, and with this being the last, with the burglar likely knowing he had been noticed by now, he would not risk waiting to get to this final piece. It would be that night, they were sure of it.</p><p>Sherlock had bet the man would come just after midnight, though she had said closer to when it was completely dark outside, likely 10 in the evening. He had no patience, he'd escalated, he wouldn't wait, not now. No, as soon as it was dark enough the man would risk going after the bust.</p><p>And there, just a little after 10, Leena saw the automatic lights come on in the pool area.</p><p>She was on her feet and moving towards the kitchen, peering through a cracked open door to ensure the thief was truly there before calling the police. And she could see it. Sherlock was there, standing, without his coat, right behind the intruder, who was trying to stuff the bust into a bag, dressed in black, his hood pulled up over his head, but there.</p><p>She nodded and made the call, keeping her eye on the scene in front of her.</p><p>Sherlock would, she had no doubt, do his best to distract the burglar, draw it out, buy time for the police to arrive…and he did just that.</p><p>She could see him speaking moments before the man spun around, about to aim a gun at Sherlock, who quickly slapped it out of the man's hand, then moved to swing the bag at Sherlock's head, but he grabbed it instead, yanking it away and throwing it into the kitchen, out of reach of the man, and then it was an all out brawl.</p><p>Leena quickly used the distraction of both men sending punches and fists flying at each other to skid into the kitchen and unzip the bag, grabbing the plaster bust out of it and jumping back to hide behind the counter when a swift kick from the intruder had Sherlock stumbling back into the kitchen where the man grabbed a barstool and hurled it at Sherlock, who ducked out of the way. Sherlock launched himself at the man, who headbutted him, then tried to slam Sherlock's head onto a cutting board on the counter. Sherlock whirled around and punched the man, grabbing a mask off of his face to throw to the side, revealing it to be a man, of Indian descent, buzzed hair, bit of stubble, tattoos on his face, bags under his eyes.</p><p>"You were on the run," Sherlock deduced, creating a scenario that would explain why something clearly precious to this man was hidden within something so simple as a bust, "Nowhere to hide your precious cargo," he kicked the man's knee, jumping back to avoid the returning kick, "You find yourself in a workshop. Plaster busts of 'The Iron Lady' drying. It's clever, very clever. But now you've met me, and you're not so clever, are you?"</p><p>"Who are you?" the man demanded.</p><p>"My name is Sherlock Holmes."</p><p>The glare the man sent him was murderous, "Goodbye, Sherlock Holmes," he spat, about to launch himself at Sherlock…</p><p>When he pitched forward instead, pain exploding from the back of his head, where Leena had snuck up on him, slamming the plaster bust to his head to drive him to his knees. The man turned, likely to attack the one who attacked him, when Leena twisted, driving her knee up into the man's face, sending him to the floor once more, before she kicked him in the ribs for good measure.</p><p>She blew a piece of hair that had fallen into her face away and jerked her head to keep it out of her eyes, "Thank you, Morgan," she murmured under her breath, he really had been invaluable in teaching her how to fight, those defensive maneuvers saving her life many times before.</p><p>She panted, looking down at the man as she tossed the bust to Sherlock, "Stay down," she warned him, pulling out her gun from the back of her belt and aiming it at him as he squirmed on the floor, his hands curled into fists near his head at the pain she'd caused.</p><p>"I had it handled," Sherlock remarked, turning the bust over in his hands as she backed up towards him.</p><p>"You're bleeding," she pointed out, a quick glance at his nose.</p><p>"No more than usual."</p><p>"And you're wearing the shirt," she reminded him, causing him to look down at his purple shirt that she adored on him, "Get blood on that and I'll never forgive you."</p><p>Sherlock chuckled at that, her obsession with him in purple was something he loved about her.</p><p>"You bitch!" the intruder growled out, trying to push himself to his knees.</p><p>Sherlock narrowed his eyes at that, "You're out of time. Tell me about your boss, Moriarty."</p><p>He had to open with that, despite the profile, he had to <em>know</em>, without a shadow of a doubt, this wasn't Moriarty's game. He had to be certain, because if he or Leena was wrong, he'd never forgive himself.</p><p>"Who?" the man spat at them.</p><p>Sherlock nodded to himself, seeing it wasn't him, which meant…one last test to see if Leena's suspicion was right, "Well, before the police come in and spoil things, why don't we just enjoy the moment?" he held up the bust and turned, hurling the bust onto the ground where it smashed into pieces…</p><p>Revealing a memory stick, with the letters A.G.R.A. written on them.</p><p>
  <em>Just. Like. Mary's.</em>
</p><p>But it wasn't Mary's, they both knew that. John had told them he burned the memory stick, Mary had told them he had, too, how he didn't care about her past as he just wanted the privilege of being part of her future. Neither of them had been lying when they said it.</p><p>It was not Mary's stick…but someone else's, the man's.</p><p>"AJ," Leena murmured, turning to look at the man, now able to really see his face, "You're AJ."</p><p>Mary had never told them the names of the others on the AGRA stick. She hadn't had to. Leena cared for John very much and as soon as it became serious between him and Mary she had pulled out all the stops to research her, dig into her past, make sure she was safe for John or at least a good person, because she knew the woman loved him deeply. She found everything, everything about Mary's past, even hacked the government to make sure of it, all of it put into her own file that only Sherlock had seen.</p><p>Including the other members of Mary's team that she worked with.</p><p>Alex<br/>
Gabriel<br/>
Rosamund<br/>
AJ</p><p>AGRA</p><p>She and Sherlock had never said anything to Mary about knowing the rest of her team. Not when Leena cracked the final report about them, how and why they disbanded, when she'd been researching why Mary had changed her name and stuck with it so long. There had been a mission, an attack, an ambush, and it was clear Mary was the only one to make it out alive, or so it seemed.</p><p>The only thing was…there were only two bodies found that were confirmed to be Gabriel and Alex. Mary's never had been, she'd survived and escaped. Neither had AJ's. But no matter how much she hacked and searched, she couldn't find hide nor hair of AJ, and so it had appeared as though his body might have been one of the few dismembered beyond identification in an ensuing bombing.</p><p>Looking at the man now, it was so clear to both of them, with Sherlock's mind and her profiling, he had been tortured, <em>for years</em>. All that time the body had been missing, it was because it had been hidden away, not allowed into the world to make a mark or a trail anywhere.</p><p>Until now.</p><p>AJ had resurfaced, and, truly, even Scotland Yard would be able to work out why and why he was after this stick.</p><p>If it had JUST been Mary's information, it would have just been R. But it was all of them, it was information about all the team. AJ needed it to take out Mary, to expose her, to sell her out. There was no need for him to go after the stick when, they were sure, he had false identifiers and passports hidden all over the world. If it was just about him making a new life, he would have gone after them and kept quiet, this...this was about the information on the stick. He knew someone on his team was alive and he wanted to get to them.</p><p>This level of determination to do it, this desperation, it was not of a person of sound mind and clear head. This was not someone keen to rekindle an old team and share fond memories. He would have taken his time to find that person again. This was too quick and fixated, as though he'd been focusing and thinking about this for too long and the second he had a chance he took it and would not let it pass by or wait to see if he lost the lead. And, since Mary was the only one left, AJ was going after her.</p><p>They couldn't let that happen.</p><p>"You are not laying a hand on her," Sherlock warned, coming to the same conclusion as Leena had about the man's reason for being there, reaching down to pick up the stick.</p><p>"Her?" AJ sneered, pushing himself onto his knees, before he jerked to the side and grabbed his pistol that had fallen into the kitchen to aim at them, "You know her. You do, don't you? You know the bitch. She betrayed me, betrayed us all!"</p><p>"Mary would never betray you," Leena grit her teeth, aiming at the man. She should have fired when he moved before, but she really wasn't the greatest shot and she didn't want to risk losing her bullets or have the man fire in retaliation. Right now it was a stalemate.</p><p>"Is that what she's calling herself now, eh?" the man spat, glancing over when he heard the sounds of sirens approaching the house.</p><p>"Armed police!" Lestrade's voice called over a speaker outside, "You're surrounded!"</p><p>"Give it to me," AJ demanded, getting to his feet, "Give it to me!"</p><p>"Come out slowly. I wanna see your hands above your head."</p><p>"Nobody shoots me!" AJ yelled out to the police, "Anyone shoots, I kill this man!"</p><p>"You kill him, I kill you," Leena raised the gun a little higher.</p><p>He smirked, "You think I can't kill you and the wee one before I bleed out?" he challenged, knowing they wouldn't risk him shooting her…and she was the one with the gun after all, who else would he really shoot at first.</p><p>"Lay down your weapon," Lestrade ordered, "Do it now!"</p><p>"Leena," Sherlock reached a hand to the small of her back, tense and rigid, his hand too much pressure there, a signal not to make this worse.</p><p>HE had a bulletproof vest on, the man could shoot him in the chest and he'd be fine, but SHE didn't, and SHE had the gun, SHE was more of the threat, and she was pregnant. Normally he would talk, irritate, insult the man so that he'd focus on HIM and shooting HIM…but this man was highly trained, like Mary was, he would never let himself be that distracted.</p><p>Leena would be his only target and if he tried to move in front of her, the man would know and fire anyway.</p><p>AJ smirked and began heading towards the door near the pool, "I'm leaving this place!" he half shouted to the police, "If no one follows me, no one dies."</p><p>"Lay down your weapon!" Lestrade tried again.</p><p>"You're policemen. I'm a professional," he looked at Sherlock and Leena, "Tell her she's a dead woman. She's a dead woman walking."</p><p>"She's our friend," Leena defended.</p><p>Sherlock shook his head, "And she's under our protection. Who are you?"</p><p>It was meant to be an insult, to say the man was no one's friend, was under no one's protection, but AJ answered anyway, "I'm the man who's gonna kill your friend. Who's Sherlock Holmes?"</p><p>"The man who will stop you," Leena stated.</p><p>The man scoffed, and turned quickly to shoot a sensor by the door to the pool room, causing it to explode and short out all the lights in the room, giving him time to escape.</p><p>~8~</p><p>It was a failed mission in Tbilisi, Georgia, six years ago that drove Mary into becoming who she was. Of course, she told none of this to Sherlock, Leena, or John, but only two of them still knew what happened. Between government files Leena had hacked into, between files she demanded of Mycroft and forced him to look the other way about, and the information she was able to gleam online, they knew everything that happened to Mary that fateful day.</p><p>An Ambassador had been taken hostage, along with her husband and her staff by insurgents. A special force of 4 soldiers had been called in, AGRA, ready to assist and extract upon the codeword given by the Ambassador. When it was given, they entered the scene, took out the insurgents in the room, so skilled it took only a single shot from their guns to the head to take them down. They had begun, then, to get the ambassador and her husband out of the scene, releasing the other hostages in the process. They had been leading the hostages out, only to come to an ambush where the lights were blown out. They tried to retreat, but were cornered in from behind by more armed men. There was no way out, no way to save all the hostages, no way to complete their mission. A flash bomb went off, gunfire rang out, and the final fight had begun…resulting in the death of numerous hostages, two confirmed AGRA soldiers, two missing and presumed dead, and just…a massacre.</p><p>They just never said anything, because Sherlock had learned the necessity of not existing for a time, because it was her past and she was important to John, and because John had said he didn't care to know. So they kept it to themselves.</p><p>The end of the story though was the part that had always bothered Leena, especially after she had researched more about AGRA's past missions too. They were good, <em>very</em> good, they planned things to a T and always used the element of surprise to take out their enemies. The only way that group could have been ambushed was if their enemies knew the attack was coming. She just didn't know how they'd found out or who gave them the warning.</p><p>As she sat in 221B with Sherlock, the man tapping the memory stick against his hand while she lightly dabbed at his eye with a wet, cool cloth, for it was already bruising, she knew she wouldn't find the answers on the memory stick either.</p><p>"Well?" Sherlock called out when the door to the flat opened and Lestrade entered.</p><p>"He can't have got far. We'll have him in a bit."</p><p>"I very much doubt it," Sherlock muttered when Leena pulled back, handing him the cloth so she could get up and grab her phone.</p><p>"Why?"</p><p>"Because I think he used to work with Mary."</p><p>Leena looked over to Sherlock when she got a response to her text and nodded, the man getting up and the two of them heading out. They had a very important conversation to be had before anything else happened, and it couldn't wait.</p><p>~8~</p><p>They had to be very careful how they contacted Mary about what they needed to tell her. They couldn't risk doing so at her flat or theirs, anywhere Mary would normally go, AJ could be out there, tracking her down as they spoke. Even if they hadn't gotten Sherlock's name out there or Mary's, AJ would have been able to find them anyway. A search of police in the area, or the break ins, for clearly they were investigating the break ins, would have Sherlock's name everywhere, and a search of his name brought up hers and John's and Mary's too. He would have found Mary anyway and they had to make sure she came to them in a place AJ would never look and that she'd be careful doing so, which meant making her think John couldn't know or follow.</p><p>It was an old church at the edge of a graveyard, abandoned, with a small vault that had some great wifi, a perfect place to set up a little base. Sherlock would sometimes use it when he wanted to contact criminals or suspects and make them very nervous, something about a spooky church being a little more intimidating than a flat with a yellow smiley face painted on the wall. There was a sofa set up, some chairs, a desk, and a few other lights though it was mostly low-tech save for the laptop they brought and set up on one of the desks.</p><p>They looked over when the creaky door was pushed in to see someone enter, wearing a yellow raincoat. They pushed down the hood, but even before they did so, they could tell it was Mary.</p><p>"That was quite a text you sent me," Mary smiled at them, turning her torch off and putting it in her pocket, "What's going on?" she looked between him and Leena for that, given the draft, even with summer so close, Sherlock would have picked a better area to set up for his pregnant wife, unless this was serious.</p><p>"The profile was right," Leena told her, grim, "It wasn't Moriarty."</p><p>"Who was it then?" Mary asked, getting that they must have confronted the bust smasher.</p><p>Sherlock merely held up the memory stick, AGRA visible even in the dim lighting.</p><p>Mary gasped, striding forward, staring at the stick in shock and a bit of delight, even, "Oh my God. That's a…"</p><p>"Yes," he nodded, "It's an AGRA memory stick like you gave John, except this one belongs to someone else."</p><p>"Who?" Mary looked at them, her eyes filling with tears, "What did he look like?"</p><p>"AJ," Leena answered, giving her the name and not the description.</p><p>Mary swallowed hard, "You've looked at it then."</p><p>"No," she shook her head, "Mary, we've known for a while, a good long while. About you, AJ…"</p><p>"Gabriel and Alex too," Sherlock finished.</p><p>"I am very thorough," Leena offered, trying to smile, but knowing this situation, what they were about tell Mary about this teammate of hers, would be anything but something to smile at.</p><p>"But it can't be," Mary shook her head, trying to push the fact that they'd really known the entire truth about her to the side for now, that wasn't important. What was important was AJ, "The others…"</p><p>"What happened Mary?" Leena stepped forward to take her hand, "I have the reports, I have eye witness accounts from the few hostages that escaped, I have the coverup…but what I don't have is the story from someone there, someone involved in the actual rescue attempt."</p><p>Mary let out a long breath, "There were four of us. Agents."</p><p>"Not just agents," Sherlock countered, wanting the full truth, because if they were going to help her, stop this, they needed every detail she could give them as accurately as possible.</p><p>"Polite term," Mary agreed, "You're right, Alex, Gabriel, AJ, and me…"</p><p>"Rosamund," Leena murmured.</p><p>Mary shuddered for a moment, hearing her real name for the first time in a very long while, hearing someone say it directed AT her instead of just passing conversation about one thing or another, "There was absolute trust between us," she gestured at the stick, "The memory sticks guaranteed it. We all had one, each containing aliases, our background, everything. We could never be betrayed because we had everything we needed to destroy the other."</p><p>"That's not trust," Leena remarked, "That's insurance."</p><p>She <em>had</em> to point that out, because…if it was trust there would be no need for the sticks. They were a way to ensure there was no betrayal, it wasn't a reason to not WANT to betray someone. Love, care, respect, trust, those were reasons not to betray someone, not insurance, not having something over another person you could use to destroy them.</p><p>And…with the way AJ was reacting, Mary could not afford to still see this man as someone she trusted. She would try to get through to him first instead of do what she might need to do to save herself. She may let her guard down, let him too close, she may not take the shot that would mean her life or his.</p><p>"Who employed you?" Sherlock asked.</p><p>"Anyone who paid well," Mary shrugged, tugging her hand back from Leena to put it in her pocket with the action, "I mean, we were at the top of our game for years, and then...it all ended."</p><p>"The coup in Georgia," Leena nodded.</p><p>"The British embassy in Tbilisi was taken over, lots of hostages. We got the call to go in, get them out. There was a change of plan, a last-minute adjustment."</p><p>"Who from?" Sherlock straightened, as did Leena, knowing they were on the cusp of working out how the ambush had happened, how it had all gone 'horribly wrong.'</p><p>"I don't know," Mary sighed, "Just another voice on the phone, and a code word, 'ammo.'"</p><p>"Ammo?" Leena repeated.</p><p>"Like 'ammunition,'" Mary nodded.</p><p>Leena frowned, for a moment, well, her mind had gone to a different sounding word. Te Amo. While her parents had been born and raised in France, as had she for the beginning part of her life, and while a majority of her family were French, her father's mother, her grandmother had been from Spain. She had fond memories, few though they were, she had been so young when the woman passed, of her grandmother cuddling with her, reading her Robin Hood to bed and tucking her in, whispering 'te amo' before she turned out the lights.</p><p>But, in this situation, ammunition made far more sense when about to go to a gunfight.</p><p>"We went in, but then something went wrong. Something went really wrong," Mary shook her head, hating to think about it, "We got cornered, ambushed. I threw a flash bomb on the ground to blind out attackers, AJ threw a smoke bomb, and shots went off. Gabriel was hit, he fell. I tried to move forward, lead the attack, advance, but a soldier came up behind us and grabbed Alex, snapped his neck. I tried to look back for AJ but with the smoke…" she swallowed hard, "I managed to clear a path with the hostages, chucked my gear and fled with them, blended in and got out," she let out a long breath, "That was six years ago. Feels like forever. I was the ONLY one that made it out."</p><p>"AJ did, too," Leena shook her head, "It just…took him a very long time."</p><p>Sherlock turned and plugged the memory stick into the laptop, "We met him last night. He was the one looking for the sixth Thatcher, for that," he nodded at the stick, he clicked on a few files, bringing up a picture of AJ, knowing Mary could very easily think the stick was faked to make her think one of her team made it, but there was the proof, all of AJ's aliases popping up.</p><p>"AJ," she breathed, stunned that the stick was real, there was no way to replicate that information, not in that order, not in that set up, "He's alive?"</p><p>"Yeah, very much so."</p><p>"I don't believe it!" she nearly laughed, so utterly delighted that it broke Leena's heart to see, to know what would be coming next, "This is amazing! I thought I was the only one. I thought I was the only one who got out."</p><p>"Mary…" she began.</p><p>"Where is he?" Mary turned to her, "I need to see him, now!"</p><p>"Mary, he got out," Leena repeated, "But it took him a while and…there's a very high chance he's been a prisoner, all this time."</p><p>"What?" Mary frowned.</p><p>"Tortured even, lied to, manipulated," Sherlock added, "Because, Mary, he wants you dead."</p><p>Mary laughed at that, actually <em>laughed</em>, "Sorry, no, no, 'cause we…we were <em>family</em>."</p><p>"Families fall out," Sherlock reminded her, "The memory stick is the easiest way to track you down. You're the only other survivor. It must be you that he wants, and he's already killed looking for the Thatcher bust."</p><p>"Well…he's just trying to find me," Mary tried to argue, "He survived. That's all that matters!"</p><p>"HOW he survived also matters," Leena pointed out, "Mary, whatever love or familial bond you had with AJ…it's not on his side any longer. He specifically said, 'Tell her she's a dead woman walking.'"</p><p>"Why would he want to kill me?"</p><p>"He said you betrayed him," Sherlock spoke.</p><p>"Oh, no, no, that's insane!"</p><p>"Well, it's what he believes," Sherlock remarked, "As I said, torture, lies, manipulation…it can twist anyone. Lock him up, tell him it's your fault, give him six years and…" he looked down at the computer screen, not needing to say more for Mary to get the message, to finally understand.</p><p>AJ really <em>was</em> coming to kill her.</p><p>"I suppose I was always afraid this might happen," Mary murmured, "That something in my past would come back to haunt me one day."</p><p>Because SHE wasn't the only one in danger now…they were, too, for knowing her, for trying to protect her.</p><p>"Yes, well he's a very tangible ghost," Sherlock tried to quip.</p><p>"God, I just wanted a bit of peace, and I really thought I had it."</p><p>"You DO," Leena turned to her, "We promised you, Mary, Sherwood and I, we <em>swore</em> that we would keep you and John and Hamish safe. And we will."</p><p>"Stay close to us and we WILL keep you safe from him," Sherlock nodded, "I promise you."</p><p>Mary smiled at them, at their thoughtful gesture, before she took a breath, nodding, "There's something I think you should read," she said, holding out a piece of paper she always kept on her to Sherlock, the paper a bit wet from the rain still on her glove.</p><p>"What is it?" Sherlock looked down at it, reaching out to take it.</p><p>"I hoped I wouldn't have to do this…" Mary began, watching Sherlock unfold it, waiting a moment before he began to sway unsteadily on his feet, the chemicals laced on the paper already soaking into his bare hands.</p><p>"Mary!" Leena turned to her, only for Mary to pull a gun from her pocket and aim it at her, regret heavy in her eyes.</p><p>"Mary…" Sherlock reached out, as though to try and stop her, push the gun down, but Mary stepped back and he fell to the ground.</p><p>She looked back up at Leena, her heart breaking to do this…but Leena wouldn't risk trying to disarm her, Leena wouldn't trust that she wouldn't fire the gun this time.</p><p>She had shot Sherlock Holmes.</p><p>She could shoot Leena too, even if the woman was pregnant.</p><p>And Leena knew that.</p><p>She didn't <em>want</em> to shoot her, she would try so hard not to, and part of her knew she wouldn't have to…because Leena, for all the trust she had grown and built between them, would never forget that she <em>did</em> shoot Sherlock and nearly killed him, and that part of her would never trust Mary NOT to shoot someone if she was desperate and needed to do so.</p><p>"It'll be alright," Mary looked between the two of them, tears in her eyes now, backing towards the door, Sherlock trying to keep moving, to push himself up but too weak, Leena stuck where she was by the gun aimed at her, "It's for the best, believe me."</p><p>She carefully aimed the gun, waiting till Sherlock was too out of it, before she moved to the laptop and pulled the stick out of it, "You just look after them till I get back," she looked to the girl, "I'm sorry…" before she turned and ran out of the room, slamming the door shut and Leena could hear her wedging something heavy in front of it to trap them in.</p><p>Leena sighed as she moved to sit beside Sherlock, reaching out to take his hand, carefully using a tissue from her pocket to pull the paper out of his hold and toss it aside, before she pulled her mobile from her pocket, bringing it to her ear as she waited for the person to pick up, he gaze on the laptop, the empty memory stick slot.</p><p>When the phone clicked on, she knew they were there, just didn't know what to say or how to start. So she did it for them, "She took it, she left," her heart broke at the exhale she heard over the phone, "I'm so sorry, John."</p><p>~8~</p><p>"Agra?" Mycroft scoffed as he sat with his feet up on his office desk, Sherlock and Leena in front of him, though Leena was fixated on her phone, "A city on the banks of the river Yamuna in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India. It is 378 kilometers west of the state capital, Lucknow…"</p><p>"Think HOUND, Mycroft," Leena cut in.</p><p>"It's is an acronym," Sherlock agreed.</p><p>"Oh, good," Mycroft rolled his eyes, "I love an acronym. All the best secret societies have them."</p><p>"Enough games," Leena lowered her phone, "YOU know who they are. You gave me their files…"</p><p>"You threatened to smother me in my sleep if I didn't."</p><p>"Like you were actually worried…" Leena scoffed, knowing he'd done it as a way to make up for helping Sherlock fake his death, he'd made a lot of concessions to her during those two years.</p><p>Mycroft just gave her a look, "You had nothing left to lose."</p><p>It was in that moment that Sherlock realized…Mycroft had actually feared for his life when she made that threat. He'd truly been worried she'd go through with it.</p><p>…exactly how bad a place had Leena pretended to be in during his 'death' that even <em>Mycroft</em> believed she would be capable of actually killing him?</p><p>…and how much of it wasn't an act?</p><p>He knew she'd revealed to Mycroft near the end that she was aware, the entire time, that he had faked his death. Not so much that he was alive or well during the whole two years, but that she knew the initial death had been false. But she had let the man think she'd believed it for a majority of that time. She had to have played the part very well for Mycroft to really think she meant it.</p><p>And he knew Leena, for as good as she was at adapting to a situation, talking down an unstable individual, holding her own, she could only do so when she was drawing up some real feeling. Part of her act had been real, in some way.</p><p>"I still wouldn't have killed you," Leena argued, "You're Sherwood's brother."</p><p>"Sentiment," Mycroft scoffed.</p><p>"Which is what kept you alive," Leena reminded him, "And sentiment is the only thing keeping you on the list of possible godfathers, so you're going to help us with this."</p><p>"With what?" Mycroft sighed.</p><p>Sherlock just barely managed to keep the smirk off his face as he turned to his brother, "One of AGRA's members, AJ, is looking for Mary, also one of the team."</p><p>"Indeed? Well, that's news to me."</p><p>"We both know you're lying, Mycroft," Leena cut in, "If you can't be serious…" she began to stand.</p><p>He sighed, rolling his eyes, he really <em>did</em> need to stop indulging the two of them in their whims, but not when they had leverage against him, he <em>would</em> be the godfather come hell or high water, "AGRA were very reliable. Then came the Tbilisi incident. They were sent in to free the hostages but it all went horribly wrong. And that was that. We stopped using freelancers."</p><p>"Yes, yes, we know that," Sherlock huffed, "What we need to know is how the horribly wrong, went horribly wrong. There was something else, a detail, a code word," he tugged a paper to him and wrote it down.</p><p>"'AMMO?'" Mycroft read.</p><p>"It's all we've got."</p><p>"Little enough."</p><p>"Could you do some digging?" Leena asked, "As a favor?"</p><p>"Neither of you have many favors left."</p><p>Leena sighed, rubbing her head, "We'll bump you up above Mike," she offered. Even though John was going to be the godfather, Mycroft didn't need to know that when dangling it in front of him could get them what they wanted. And, really, Mike Stamford, as a more acquaintance-friend of Sherlock's, was so far down on the list Mycroft would have a ways to go yet, Lestrade was higher than Mike, her team at the BAU higher than him still.</p><p>Mycroft eyed her a moment, smirking when he saw the irritation on Sherlock's face as he grew closer and closer to being named godfather, which he knew his brother was loath to allow to happen, "And if you can find who's after her and neutralize them, what then? You think you can go on saving her forever?"</p><p>"Of course," Sherlock remarked, nonchalant.</p><p>"Is that sentiment talking?"</p><p>"No. It's me."</p><p>"Difficult to tell the difference these days," Mycroft eyed him, "Used to be that only happened with Leena."</p><p>Sherlock's eyes narrowed at his use of Leena's nickname instead of 'Jackie.'</p><p>"Sentiment happens with family," Leena defended, "Lord knows he needs at least one sibling he actually likes."</p><p>Mycroft narrowed his eyes at her for that remark, even as Sherlock smirked, getting the dig she'd sent. That John (and Mary by extension) was as good as a brother to him now, and of course he would allow for sentiment when it came to family. Mycroft hardly ever showed him sentiment, why would he return the favor?</p><p>"Leena and I made a promise, a vow," Sherlock added.</p><p>Mycroft sighed, sitting up more, "Alright. I'll see what I can do. But remember this, brother mine," he leaned forward, observing them, "Agents like Mary tend not to reach retirement age. They get retired in a pretty permanent sort of way."</p><p>"Not on our watch," Sherlock swore, Leena firm and resolute beside him.</p><p>That was what family did, watched out for each other, as John had once put it 'friends keep people safe' and that was exactly what they would do, because John and Mary would do the same for them.</p><p>~8~</p><p>It had been heartbreaking to have to watch John read the note Mary had left for him when she went on the lamb, trying to put as much distance between them and the danger following her as she could, according to her letter. She had fled, taken the first flight out of England and then…she didn't know where she would go, leaving it to chance and the literal roll of a dice, a means to try and keep Sherlock from deducing her next move or Leena from profiling her preferences. She promised she would return, which was something, Leena supposed, but the fact that she had left was what truly hurt John…even though he'd been warned about it.</p><p>He had sworn up and down that he knew Mary, he KNEW her, and she wouldn't leave him and Hamish like that, even with Sherlock and Leena warning that she would. Leena had an entire profile for the woman, adding to it every so often when she learned new things about Mary, but everything in it told her that the woman would leave the second she suspected danger directed at her family, to lure it away and handle it herself. John had been angry, shouted that she might be wrong, that this might be the one profile she was wrong about.</p><p>Perhaps it had been that, that caveat of 'what if she wasn't' which made John back down and offer them the only way he could think of to find Mary again…and drag her back go England if he had to.</p><p>Mary was so sure they wouldn't find her though. She'd be shocked to learn that they knew every step she made, from when she travelled through Norway, to Liechtenstein, to Italy, to Greece, to Algeria, and even Morocco.</p><p>They left it up to John, <em>when</em> they would confront Mary for they would always know <em>where</em> she was when he was ready for that meeting.</p><p>The poor man had hoped she would come back, it took him a full month before he had accepted that she wasn't coming back on her own to apologize and ask for help. So he'd then given her a month to try and handle it herself, then two, then three, he'd given her a season, just one season, nearly a third of a year in total, and he figured, if she hadn't managed by then...it wouldn't happen any time soon and he'd called it then, turned to his friends and said it was enough.</p><p>Drawing a target away meant going somewhere and waiting, luring them to you.</p><p>Mary wasn't doing that, she was constantly travelling, constantly moving. Not that he wanted her to be bait in a trap or face down the threat alone, but it was making him feel as though she may not have the intention to stop. It could get her killed if she was so focused on running that she missed the person sneaking up on her. She needed a base, she needed a plan, a trap that SHE controlled, and that wasn't happening.</p><p>He had trusted her at first, that she would be smart and prepared and careful even without him there to watch her back, but he couldn't stand by any longer, 4 months was his limit.</p><p>He would bring her back and they would stop this together.</p><p>Which was how three people found themselves camped out in a small hotel in Morocco, waiting for Mary to return to her room where they were waiting for her.</p><p>Sherlock smirked, in the middle of a card game with the son of the hotel owners, hearing someone approaching slowly from the doorway of the room, which they'd purposefully left open so she would hear someone within the boy was talking to. Even with the chatter, he was intimately familiar with the sound of a gun cocking, and reached out absently to take Leena's hand as she sat beside him, her back to the wall, her eyes closed, worn out and <em>very</em> tired, her other hand gently rubbing at her very large stomach. They had tried to keep Leena in London. Citing her pregnancy and how far along she was, admittedly, hadn't been the best course of action for she was quite terrifying for someone naturally so calm, he supposed any woman at the height of their pregnancy would be though.</p><p>He and John both ended up with soundly bruised shins and Leena deleted every program they had running for tracking Mary except for one on her phone, which she then changed the password to so not even Sherlock could crack it. It left them little option but to bring her along if they wished to be able to keep walking without wincing or even hope to find Mary.</p><p>Mycroft, in a somewhat surprising move of compassion, had offered a small private plane for them to use, remarking Leena should not be flying in her condition, but even less so on such a crowded and large plane where it could not be landed easily if something happened.</p><p>Sherlock was of the opinion the man had only done so to be bumped up ahead of Greg in the list of potential godfathers. His brother would still have to bypass at least 5 other men to get anywhere near the top of the list though so he accepted the offer.</p><p>"Mr. Baker," Sherlock spoke to their young host who had been cajoling him about his victory in their card game, "Well, that completes the set," he glanced over when he saw Mary leap out from behind the corner of a wall, now dressed in dark clothing with equally dark, short hair, and a long white scarf over her head, a gun loose in her hand and a startled look on her face that only grew more so when she saw not just him but Leena there as well.</p><p>"No, it does not," the young boy continued, not noticing Mary's gun which she quickly hid behind her back.</p><p>"Well, who else am I missing?" Sherlock continued, holding up a finger to Mary when she moved to speak, he was in the middle of a conversation after all.</p><p>"Master Bun," the boy stated, "It's not a set without him. How many more times, Mr. Sherlock?"</p><p>"Maybe it's because I'm not familiar with the concept yet," Sherlock remarked, setting the cards down for the game, 'Happy Families' he'd been playing, taking note of the small smile that grew on Leena's face at his words. He hadn't had the best time growing up with the likes of Mycroft looming over him, and his disinterest with his parents, his lack of friends. But it warmed her heart to know that he had better hopes for the family THEY were making.</p><p>"Oh, hello Mary," Sherlock added, as though 'just' noticing her standing there, "Nice trip?"</p><p>"How the f..." Mary began, but Leena interrupted.</p><p>"Language, Mary," Leena spoke, cracking an eye open to peer at her, "There are children present…and not just this one," she patted her stomach.</p><p>Mary let out a breath, "<em>How</em> did you get in here?!"</p><p>"Karim is a very kind and respectful boy," Leena spoke, making the boy grin, "He was very gracious about helping us check on our dear friend."</p><p>"Hello," the boy nodded at Mary.</p><p>"Karim," Sherlock turned to him, "Would you be so kind as to fetch us some tea? And perhaps a bit of fruit, my wife's a bit peckish."</p><p>"Sure," Karim smiled and got up, eager to help the kind people.</p><p>"I'll show you peckish," Leena muttered under her breath, hating when he used her pregnancy as an excuse for other people (besides Mycroft) to do things for them.</p><p>Though, she had to admit, the conversation that followed would probably <em>not</em> be one a boy should hear.</p><p>"No," Mary spoke as soon as Karim was out of the room, "I mean how did you find me?"</p><p>Leena chuckled, "Mary," she opened both eyes and sat up more, wincing at a tug at her back, which had ached quite terribly the last few months, "He's Sherlock Holmes!"</p><p>Sherlock smirked and winked at Mary for that.</p><p>"No, really, though, <em>how</em>?"</p><p>"Mary, Mary," Sherlock sighed and shook his head, "My wife is a profiler."</p><p>Mary was now looking very unimpressed, "Every movement I made was entirely random, every new personality just on the roll of a dice!"</p><p>Sherlock scoffed at that, "No human action is ever truly random. An advanced grasp of the mathematics of probability mapped onto a thorough apprehension of human psychology and the known dispositions of any given individual can reduce the number of variables considerably," he refrained from smirking when Mary just stared at him, lost, "I myself know of at least 58 techniques to refine this seemingly infinite array of randomly generated possibilities down to the smallest number of feasible variables."</p><p>Leena shook her head even as Mary began to nod, the woman clearly believing the absolute load of bollocks Sherlock had been spewing, "We stuck a tracer on the memory stick."</p><p>Mary glared at Sherlock as he began to laugh at her gullibility, "Oh, you bastard!"</p><p>"I know, but <em>your face</em>!" Sherlock cackled.</p><p>"'The mathematics of probability?!'"</p><p>"You believed that."</p><p>"'Feasible variables!'"</p><p>"Yes. I started to run out about then."</p><p>"Profiler, Mary," Leena pointed at herself, "I knew you'd run the second we told you about all this, and that you'd never leave without the stick."</p><p>"So you tracked the stick," Mary huffed, shaking her head at them, muttering to herself, "In the memory stick!" as though she should have thought of that.</p><p>"Yeah," John's voice spoke, and instantly the small smile that had grown on Mary's face fell when he stepped into the room, "That was my idea."</p><p>Leena looked at her friend sadly, "Did you <em>really</em> think we wouldn't tell John first about you being in danger?" she glanced at Sherlock, who had grown serious beside her, and back to Mary, "John is the one who saves the lives."</p><p>Mary could only nod, tears in her eyes as she looked at her husband after so long apart, she had missed him so much, him and Hamish, her boys, but he didn't look very pleased to see her right now.</p><p>No, he looked disappointed, and if that didn't just break her heart to see.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Leena and Sherlock sat off to the side of the small room Mary had been renting for her brief, too brief, stay in Morocco. They wanted to give the Watsons privacy to speak, to hash out what they likely both needed to vent about in peace, but John had asked them to stay. If Mary ran again, and he had no reason to think she wouldn't, he didn't know if he'd have the heart to stop her, where the others might have a better chance…or Sherlock would at least.</p><p>Leena had thrown the small candy she'd been munching on at his head for that, and missed, but it was the effort that mattered!</p><p>And so they were in the back of the room, trying to be quiet and respectful as the two talked near the window, Mary's blonde hair, which had been hidden beneath her atrocious wig, revealed and glinting in the moonlight.</p><p>"AGRA," John began, once he'd felt calm enough to speak without yelling or throwing things back at her.</p><p>"Yes," Mary nodded.</p><p>"You said it was your initials."</p><p>"In a way, that was true."</p><p>"In a way?" John scoffed, looking away, "So many lies…"</p><p>"I'm so sorry."</p><p>Leena looked over at Sherlock when he squeezed her hand gently, his expression, the way his eyes bore in to her own, causing her to smile gently back. He had only ever kept one thing from her, and it hadn't even been an outright lie, not really, because he had given her all the clues she needed to work out the truth after the fact. And even when he hadn't given clues, the one time her faith in him had been shaken by Irene, it had never been a direct lie, only his inability to know what had to be actually said out loud for he thought his actions were clear when they weren't. It was never intentional. They knew each other too long to want to keep secrets, each of their skills making the other an open book if they wanted to use them in that fashion, but they didn't need to. She leaned over more, resting her head on his shoulder. No, there would never be secrets between them.</p><p>"I don't just mean you," John sighed, turning to her.</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"Alex, Gabriel, AJ, you're 'R,'" John deduced, smiling a bit when he worked out what R name it had to be, "Rosamund."</p><p>It had been the only name they'd thought to use had Hamish been a girl.</p><p>"Rosamund Mary. I always liked 'Mary.'"</p><p>John smiled a bit more, "Yeah, me too," before it fell away with a heavy sigh, "I used to."</p><p>"I just…" Mary began, when John moved a few steps away, "I didn't know what else to do."</p><p>"You could have stayed," John turned to her, upset because her actions meant HE couldn't stay with Hamish now, he'd had to leave his son in the care of his sister just to track down his wayward wife, "You could have talked to me. That's what couples are supposed to do: work things through!"</p><p>A part of him was also a bit angry she didn't talk to Sherlock or Leena either, even if she felt she couldn't turn to <em>him</em>, she had other people who cared about her too. He would have been ok if she chose them for help, so long as she stayed. Because he knew, his best friend and Leena would have come to him, because he deserved to know of the danger and the plan to protect his wife.</p><p>"Yes," Mary nodded, sniffling at how badly she had mucked this up, "Yes, of course."</p><p>"Mary," John sighed, moving over to her and taking her hands, "I may not be a very good man, but I think I'm a bit better than you give me credit for, most of the time."</p><p>"All the time," Mary insisted, "You're <em>always</em> a good man, John. I've never doubted that. You never judge, you never complain. I don't deserve you. I…" she took a breath, "All I ever wanted to do was keep you and Hamish safe, that's all."</p><p>"And all we wanted was to keep YOU safe," Leena spoke up gently, seeing that the Watsons might have come to a brief respite now.</p><p>"We promised we would," Sherlock agreed, standing, offering a hand to Leena to help her up with a bit more struggle than Mary remembered, which made the woman smile to see how big he friend had grown, "But it has to be in London. It's my city, I know the turf. Come home and everything will be alright, I promise you."</p><p>"John, get down!" Leena suddenly shouted, having looked over at John when Sherlock spoke to Mary and saw a red laser of what could only be a gun appearing on the side of his head.</p><p>Mary reacted before John could blink, throwing herself at the man and yanking him down a moment before gunfire rang out. Sherlock dove for a nearby table, throwing it on its side for more cover as Leena dropped to her knees with a bruising thud, the two of them taking cover. John scrambled to the side, Mary throwing herself at her bag, grabbing her gun that she'd stowed away there.</p><p>The gunfire stopped for only a moment, to allow the shooter to kick down the door. AJ appeared, marching in with a rifle in front of him.</p><p>Mary spun around and fired three shots from her pistol, forcing the man to take cover around the corner near the door, giving Mary time to duck behind a dresser at the end of the room.</p><p>"Hello again," AJ spat.</p><p>Mary's breath shuddered, hearing his voice for the first time in so long, "AJ?"</p><p>"Oh, you remember me. I'm touched," he hissed.</p><p>"Look, I thought you were dead, believe me, I did."</p><p>"I've been looking forward to this for longer than you can imagine."</p><p>"I swear to you, I thought you were dead. I thought I was the only one who got out."</p><p>A single gunshot rang out as AJ moved around the corner, firing at the largest target she could be hiding behind, the table. Mary was off to the side, by the dresser though, Sherlock having moved behind a cabinet, making room for John to remain behind the table with Leena, swapping places with him.</p><p>"How did you find us?" Sherlock called out, holding a hand out as far as he could to the dresser nearby, for Mary to hand him her pistol since he was closer.</p><p>"By following you, Sherlock Holmes," AJ spat, "I mean, you're clever, you found her, but I found you, so perhaps not so clever."</p><p>"Shit," Leena huffed under her breath, John looking at her in concern as she winced…only he couldn't tell if it was in upset over being so easily followed, or something else…but the bullets hadn't gone through the table and Sherlock wasn't trying to kill AJ yet so she couldn't have been wounded…</p><p>"And now here we are, at last," AJ continued.</p><p>Sherlock looked around, trying to find a way to give them an advantage, or at least make it more difficult for AJ…and spotted the light hanging from the ceiling. He quickly stood and fire at the light to shatter it, and turning to aim the pistol at AJ, but the man dropped into a crouch for cover.</p><p>"Touché," AJ chuckled.</p><p>"Listen," John called out from behind the table, "Whatever you think you know, we can talk about this. We can work it out."</p><p>"She thought I was dead. I might as well have been!"</p><p>"It was always just the four of us, always, remember?" Mary tried to appeal to that familial bond they'd had.</p><p>"Oh yeah?"</p><p>"So why d'you want to kill me?"</p><p>"D'you know how long they kept me prisoner?" AJ spat, "What they did to me? They tortured Alex to death," he wheezed as though recalling the memory of it, "I can still hear the sound of his back breaking. But you, you…where were YOU?"</p><p>"That day at the embassy, I escaped."</p><p>"Oh, yeah?"</p><p>"But I lost sight of you too, so you explain: where were you?"</p><p>"Oh, I got out…for a while. Long enough to hide my memory stick. I didn't want that to fall into their hands. I was loyal, you see, loyal to my friends. But they took me, tortured me. Not for information. Not for anything except fun."</p><p>Leena let out a sharp breath, John reaching out to put a hand on her back, knowing what she must be thinking. HE had the medical background, so he could only imagine the pain and anguish the man had been in. But Leena had the psychological aspect of it, she would know, better than all of them, what that sort of mental scarring would do, to be tortured mercilessly for nothing but another's pleasure. It would be bound to twist a person, affect them on a whole other level than needing information would.</p><p>Information meant it stopped once it was given, fun meant it could go on forever.</p><p>"Oh, they thought I'd give in, die, but I <em>didn't</em>. I <em>lived</em>, and eventually they forgot about me just rotting in a cell somewhere. Six years they kept me there, until one day I saw my chance. Oh, and I…I made them pay," the darkness in his voice made them all tense and flinch, "You know, all the time I was there, I just kept picking up things, little whispers, laughter, gossip: how the clever agents had been betrayed. Brought down by you."</p><p>"Me?" Mary scoffed, offended now.</p><p>Right at that moment a train went past the tracks outside the building, the light from it brightening the room enough for AJ to leap from his cover and aim for Sherlock. But Mary had the same idea, bounding out from behind the dresser and grabbing the pistol from Sherlock to face off with the man herself. John scrambled to the side, for a bag that had another gun in it, turning to aim it over the table's top, in time to see AJ and Mary meet at the end of the room, both aiming their pistols at each other's heads.</p><p>"You know I'll kill you too," Mary spoke, her voice eerily calm and sure, "You <em>know</em> I will, AJ."</p><p>"What, you think I <em>care</em> if I die?" AJ nearly panted with the anger coursing through him, "I've<em> dreamed</em> of killing you every night for <em>six years</em>, of squeezing the life out of your treacherous, lying throat."</p><p>"I swear to you, AJ…" Mary began, trying to plead with him.</p><p>Leena grit her teeth and turned to face the two, knowing she had to help, this was her <em>job</em>, this was what SHE did, talk people down. Mary would never get through to AJ with feelings and the good old times, nor would John or Sherlock with threat and a gun aimed at him.</p><p>"What did you hear?" she asked, catching how AJ's gaze flickered to her for all of a second, too quickly for Mary to try and press her advantage, but she knew she'd caught his attention, "As their prisoner. What were the exact words that they said about who betrayed you?"</p><p>"What did I hear?" AJ scoffed, "'Ammo.' Every day as they tore into me. Ammo. Ammo…" his voice began to shake and tremble, a sign of escalation on the horizon, "Ammo. Ammo. We were betrayed!"</p><p>"By who?" Leena pressed, her hands gripping the edge of the table so hard her knuckles were turning white, her face pinched as she lifted herself up enough to peer at him over the edge of the table, "What name did they give?"</p><p>"I didn't need a name!" AJ spat, "It was HER. SHE betrayed us!" his hand on his gun began to tremble now.</p><p>"Then how do you know it was <em>Mary</em>?" she tried to reason, her voice shaking but calm.</p><p>"They said it was the English woman!"</p><p>"I'm sorry to tell you this," Leena spoke, "But there are approximately 33.82 million English women. And over 200 in government alone. Why do you think MARY was the one to betray you? Wasn't the Ambassador English too?"</p><p>For a brief second, for one very brief moment, Mary could <em>see</em> the hesitation, the question, the consideration, in AJ's eyes as Leena's question got to him. Why HER? Why her and not any other English woman? She doubted very much that it was the Ambassador who set them up but…Leena had a point that it COULD have been. All that time it could have been the Ambassador or any other woman in the government who knew about AGRA. And that was all she needed, AJ to hesitate and question and she could…</p><p>Before another word was spoken, two shots rang out from the doorway, a Moroccan police officer was standing there, having been drawn there by the sounds of gunfire, and shot into AJ"s back, sending him to the ground.</p><p>"No!" Mary screamed, leaping forward to catch him even after he tried to kill her, "No!"</p><p>John leapt over the table, hurrying to Mary's side to try and help the man, for no matter what happened he was a doctor and doctors helped. He had just moved to press his fingers to AJ's neck, to check on his pulse, when Karim entered and dropped the tray of tea and fruit he'd been preparing at the sight of the dead man.</p><p>John sighed, turning to Mary as the officer hurried Karim out, "I'm sorry," he told her as she sobbed beside him.</p><p>Sherlock frowned, turning to give Mary some privacy to mourn her loss, when he caught sight of Leena, gripping the table with one hand, her head bowed, her other hand hidden behind the table but she was shaking, he could tell from how tense she was.</p><p>"Leena…" he moved over to her.</p><p>"Hospital," Leena gasped, looking up at him, her face unnaturally pale and pinched, "<em>Now</em>. Sherlock."</p><p>He was at her side in an instant at the use of his actual name, his eyes, even in the dim light, noting the dark patch seeping into the top of her dark grey leggings, thankfully not a red stain, "You're not..." he blinked rapidly, his mind short circuiting at what he was seeing.</p><p>"Oh yes, I am," she swallowed hard, the shock of it all, the fright, the trauma...it was too much stress.</p><p>The baby was coming.</p><p>Now.</p><p>"Hospital," she repeated again, and the next thing she knew, John was also at her side, jumping right into doctor-mode, even Mary forcing herself to bottle her grief enough to be a nurse...</p><p>Which as just as well, Sherlock seemed to be having some sort of crisis and blinking like a malfunctioning robot...</p><p>~8~</p><p>"She's beautiful," Mary sniffled, still half in shock over the loss of AJ as she stood with John before Sherlock and Leena in a small private room in the nearest hospital.</p><p>Sherlock had hoped, if he called Mycroft in for a favor, they could fly back to London before the baby arrived, wanting Leena to be comfortable and in the location and with the doctors they had selected in London. But John insisted it was too dangerous to risk, especially with the trauma the gunfight had caused, she needed medical care right now. And it was a good thing they had, for not even 4 hours later they had been forced to complete a C-section for the child was in stress.</p><p>Luckily it had been done quickly and successfully, and their little bundle, wrapped in her pink blanket, was nestled in her parents arms.</p><p>"You're not naming her Sherly, are you?" John tried to joke, to keep it all light.</p><p>"No," Leena chuckled, "Though I <em>did</em> suggest it."</p><p>"Liberty," Sherlock smiled at the sleeping babe.</p><p>The name was so much more than just a random thought in his head from an old case. The more he thought on it, the more fitting it was for his child to be named that. Because she would be Leena's child too, and he had never felt more free to be himself, completely and fully, than when he was with her. He never would have come to accept all of himself, his intelligence, his gifts, his abilities, if she hadn't been there, encouraging him and impressed by him. He had grown and grown to be the man he was because of the freedom Leena gave him to do what he loved and be who he was.</p><p>Leena glanced up at the Watsons. Sherlock's family had a tradition of sorts, two middle names for their children. No one would ever know Mycroft's full name was Mycroft Charles Donald Holmes, but she had liked the idea of carrying on that tradition when she and Sherlock had been arguing about middle names. She had favored Rosamund, to honor Mary and how they had named their son after Sherlock. He had wanted a name more from HER reflected in their child, so they had agreed. Do both.</p><p>"Liberty Rosamund Angelique Holmes," she told the Watsons.</p><p>Mary gasped, hearing her true name used as a middle name for the child.</p><p>"It was only fair," Sherlock shrugged it off, they would have gone with William David John Holmes for a boy, so it only made sense to have a Watson middle name for their daughter too, on top of the fact that they had named their child Sherlock for a middle name.</p><p>But John was beaming at the honor they'd reciprocated with their daughter no matter what excuses Sherlock used. It wasn't just fair...Mary had been there for Leena when he'd 'died' and been a friend to her. Mary had made sure HE wouldn't die when she'd shot him. Mary had done everything she could to keep her husband safe, and he knew she'd do anything she could to keep their daughter safe too. If it hadn't been for Mary, speaking on his behalf, he didn't think John would still be his friend now.</p><p>Perhaps, one day, John's name might appear with one of their children, perhaps one day Leena's would with their child. But for now, they had honored him, as the man that helped make John who he was, a man who had kept Mary safe from Magnussen. They could honor her too.</p><p>"It's beautiful," Mary sniffled.</p><p>"She's beautiful," John offered, fully agreeing with Mary's initial assessment.</p><p>Leena sniffed, smiling down at her daughter, "She's perfect."</p><p>"She is," Sherlock agreed, holding his daughter's tiny hand in his own while she slept, before leaning in to press a kiss to Leena's forehead, both of them just relieved their daughter was alive and well. And, if he was even more pleased she had a tuft of black hair and grey eyes he hoped wouldn't fade to the blue of his own well…no one needed to know why.</p><p>Leena trailed a finger down the girl's cheek, "Te Amo," she murmured, pressing a kiss to the top of her head, "Je t'aime."</p><p>Sherlock's small smile froze at those words.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Sherlock tried his very best to be quiet as he spoke with Mycroft on the phone later that night, not caring what time it might be in London. He was still at the hospital with Leena, lying stretched out on the bed beside her, her using him more as a pillow than her own pillow which he had no complaints about. Liberty was being tended to in the nursery, while John and Mary had returned to her hotel room, to grieve and really have privacy to talk now that the madness of the night was over.</p><p>There was something that had struck him, the moment he heard Leena murmuring words of love to their daughter. He had held off saying anything, reaching out to Mycroft about it because of everything that happened, because his daughter had been in his arms and making sure she was the picture of health with all 10 fingers and toes took precedence. But now he couldn't wait any longer, because AJ might be dead, but that didn't mean Mary was safe.</p><p>"The English woman," he spoke softly to Mycroft on the other end of the line, giving him a quick run down of what had happened and that Leena was fine, their child was fine, and no he wasn't the godfather, sorry, not sorry, "That's all he heard. Naturally he assumed it was Mary."</p><p>"Couldn't this wait until you're back?" Mycroft asked, an irritation in his voice that Sherlock knew had more to do with missing the chance to be godfather than anything.</p><p>"No, it's not over," Sherlock insisted, "AJ said that they'd been betrayed. The hostage takers knew AGRA were coming. There was only a voice on the phone, remember, and a code word."</p><p>"Ammo, yes, you said."</p><p>Sherlock sighed, rubbing his head with his other hand, careful not to jostle Leena as he moved. It was his own fault. He'd accepted Mary's interpretation of the word too. The code word that, when spoken would mean AGRA should enter and begin…a code word that had been told to the hostiles as well, so they would know the attack was happening.</p><p>"How's your Latin, brother dear?"</p><p>"My Latin?"</p><p>"Amo…"</p><p>"Amas," Leena murmured beside him, conjugating the verb, "Amat, Amamus, Amatis, Amant."</p><p>"You're supposed to be sleeping," Sherlock murmured as she blinked blearily at him.</p><p>"Well, when Latin is being translated beside me, how can I resist?" she rolled her eyes, before smiling tiredly up at him, "You know how much I love when you speak like an old-fashioned gentleman."</p><p>He snorted, "You mean ancient hedonist?" he remarked, thinking of the information of ancient Roman culture that he hadn't deleted.</p><p>"Ancient one, modern one," she shrugged, wincing when it tugged a bit at her healing scar, "Love your hedonistic ways."</p><p>"I'll be deleting that," Mycroft's voice cut in over the phone, "Sherlock, what does this have to do with anything?"</p><p>"Amo," Sherlock repeated, "It wasn't AMMO, it was AMO. Which means…"</p><p>Mycroft was silent long enough for them to know he understood what they were telling him, about WHO they thought the voice on the phone who had tipped off the hostiles could be, "You'd better be right, Sherlock," the call clicked off.</p><p>"Love," Leena murmured, already falling half asleep again, "Should never be a word to cause harm."</p><p>Amo, Latin for love.</p><p>Codename: Love</p><p>Lady Smallwood</p><p>It made sense, but it also didn't make sense, and Sherlock was tempted to work it out right then and there but…after everything that happened, with AJ, with Leena, with Liberty…he could have one night, just <em>one</em> to not be the consulting detective, and just be Sherlock Holmes, with his wife and daughter.</p><p>Mycroft could handle this for the few hours he rested, he was sure of that at least.</p><p>He looked down at Leena, noting how her nose was only just starting to crinkle in her sleep, and smiled, murmuring in her ear, "Te Amo."</p><p>He let out a truly happy sigh when he saw her smile in her sleep, and finally let himself drift off.</p><p>~8~</p><p>It took nearly 2 weeks before they could fly back to London. Part of it had been monitoring Liberty and Leena to ensure any stress and trauma from the labor were resolved, that Liberty was developed and healthy, that Leena was healing well and past the point of infection.</p><p>They hadn't wanted to risk flying with Liberty so young, even if they were taking a private plane procured by Mycroft (for even if he wasn't godfather, he was still uncle and nothing Sherlock said could change that) and had tried to work out other means to return to London, perhaps even using the Eurostar. But, in the end, it ended up being deemed safer by the doctors at the hospital to fly, preferably not sooner than 2 weeks, than to travel all that way on so many different forms of transportation. The biggest concern for newborn travel was their immune system, exposing them to trains and buses and so on would be more detrimental to Liberty than risking a 2 hour flight on a private plane. They would need to have her checked out by their doctors in London though, to ensure there was no trouble caused to her ears or anything from the altitude and take off.</p><p>They had been lucky, somewhat. Liberty had screamed bloody murder, not a fan of airplanes, and had fussed once they were in the air, which had been somewhat entertaining to see Sherlock pace the length of the plane, bobbing and swaying with Liberty, to try and help her through for a majority of the flight. Leena had taken over at one point, needing to stretch her legs as the doctors ordered, but Sherlock hadn't liked how shaky she was, being so high up, and still so tired and trying to get back to rights after the labor. She'd slept the rest of the flight while he murmured stories to Liberty.</p><p>Or, as John told her later, recounted the <em>least</em> gruesome cases they'd had to the baby.</p><p>It was a step up though, compared to the cases he'd shown other children in the past.</p><p>Both John and Mary had been so relieved to see Hamish again, John being forced to leave the boy behind with Harriet, playing it off as allowing the aunt to bond with her nephew if anyone asked. They didn't need to know that he was leaving to drag his wife back to London. Harry had been doing so well in being sober and this was a real test of that, but he'd also had Molly check in with the woman from time to time, and he called every day, and things had been good. Hamish had adored his aunt.</p><p>Once Liberty had been checked over and deemed perfect by the doctors (as if she was anything but perfect, Sherlock had scoffed), they brought the baby to Mrs. Hudson to fawn over for the hour they needed to attend Mycroft's interrogation of Lady Smallwood.</p><p>He hadn't wanted to let on that they knew anything, thinking that word would get back about the rogue AGRA agent and not wanting to seem like he suspected anything till he could be sure the profiler and the consulting detective were there to ensure nothing was missed in the interrogation.</p><p>And so they stood there, on the other side of the two way mirror, watching as Mycroft spoke with Smallwood about her own history with AGRA.</p><p>"This is absolutely ridiculous and you know it," Lady Smallwood huffed, "How many more times?"</p><p>"Six years ago you held the brief for foreign operations, codename 'Love,'" Mycroft began.</p><p>"And you're basing all this on a codename? On a whispered voice on the telephone? Come on, Mycroft."</p><p>"You were the conduit for AGRA. Every assignment, every detail, they got from <em>you</em>."</p><p>"It was my job."</p><p>"Then there was the Tbilisi incident. AGRA went in."</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>"And they were betrayed."</p><p>"<em>Not</em> by <em>me</em>," the woman stated, her tone firm and insistent, "Mycroft, we've known each other a long time. I promise you, I haven't the foggiest idea what all this is about. You wound up AGRA and all the other freelancers," she eyed him a moment, "I haven't done any of the things you're accusing me of. Not one. Not. One."</p><p>"We knew there was something wrong," Leena murmured beside Sherlock as they watched on.</p><p>"Something missing," he agreed.</p><p>They had hoped, witnessing this interrogation would offer up a clue as to what that was. But there was nothing new here, nothing they hadn't already considered.</p><p>Why would someone who was about to betray a team they hired, use their actual codename to do it? They wouldn't. It would have to be a setup of sorts, someone who wanted the finger pointed at Smallwood. They played along, hoping to gleam something to point them further along. But she sat there, agreeing she was the only one who had contact with AGRA. So how could someone have done it?</p><p>There was something they were missing, and they wouldn't find it in this room, because Smallwood, every word she said was true, no hint of a lie in them, something they knew Mycroft had noticed as well. They were running out of time though, because whatever was happening, bringing Smallwood in for interrogation was not something that would go unnoticed. Whoever had done this, set all this up, would realize someone was getting closer to uncovering the truth.</p><p>"Thatcher," Sherlock murmured, "It started with her…"</p><p>"No," Leena shook her head, "It started with Amo, with the codeword, with someone who would have <em>known</em> Smallwood's codename…"</p><p>Sherlock stiffened, "Antarctica, Langdale, Porlock, and Love..."</p><p>Leena's mind raced, picking up on the shift in him, "And two of them are English MEN."</p><p>"The receptionist!" Sherlock realized, thinking back to what Mary herself had said about how receptionists know everything, because they take minutes!</p><p>Leena hurried forward and rapped on the glass while Sherlock pulled out his phone.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Sherlock carefully made his way through the halls of the London Aquarium, making his way to where Vivian Norbury would undoubtedly be waiting. Leena would be joining him shortly, as soon as Mary arrived for she had something for the woman that had to be done before she set foot in the building with John. He had initially wanted to text only Mary to come there, since this was a case Mary needed to see the end of given it personally affected her and she had been the target. But Leena had pointed out Mary was John's wife and there should be no more secrets between them, if someone was threatening HER wouldn't Sherlock want to be there to see that threat dealt with?</p><p>So he'd sent a text to both to meet at the London Aquarium.</p><p>He'd gone in ahead, needing to make sure Vivian would actually be there as they guessed and to distract or stall her till the others arrived. Mycroft was mobilizing his team as he spoke, John and Mary likely calling Lestrade along the way, they just needed time and to get the confession they needed before the team could be used. Vivian might confess if she thought she had a chance of escaping, he just had to buy time and get the confession.</p><p>"Ladies and gentlemen, the Aquarium will be closing in five minutes," the announcement came over the tannoy as he hurried along, "Please make your way to the exit. Thank you."</p><p>He finally reached the enclosure he suspected she would be at, where people could sit on benches and watch the various sea life around them, "Your office said I'd find you here."</p><p>"This was always my favorite spot for agents to meet," Vivian remarked, not even turning to look at him, calm, "We're like them: ghostly, living in the shadows."</p><p>"Predatory," he added when she finally did turn.</p><p>"Well, it depends which side you're on," she shrugged, turning back around, observing the sharks swimming past, "Also, we have to keep moving or we die."</p><p>"Nice location for the final act. Couldn't have chosen it better myself. But then I never could resist a touch of the dramatic."</p><p>"I just come here to look at the fish," Vivian spoke, before sighing and standing, moving closer to the glass, "I knew this would happen one day," she turned to face him, shifting so her handbag was draped in the crook of her elbow, "It's like that old story."</p><p>Sherlock rolled his eyes, "I really am a very busy man. Would you mind cutting to the chase?" he and Leena had now been away from their daughter longer than the planned hour and it was setting him on edge in a way he hadn't expected.</p><p>"You're very sure of yourself, aren't you?" she laughed.</p><p>"With good reason."</p><p>"There was once a merchant in a famous market in Baghdad…" Vivian began.</p><p>"I really have <em>never</em> liked this story," Sherlock cut in, mentally taking it off the ever growing list of stories he would one day tell Liberty at bedtime.</p><p>"I'm just like the merchant in the story. I thought I could outrun the inevitable. I've always been looking over my shoulder, always expecting to see the grim figure of…"</p><p>"Death," Mary spoke as she and Leena hurried into the room.</p><p>A quick, sharp glance at Mary's clothing and the nod Leena sent him told him she'd done as they planned and given Mary his bulletproof vest.</p><p>This woman, Vivian Norbury, had been the cause for AGRA's demise. She wanted them gone and finished, and she would <em>not</em> be one to go lightly without first seeing her accomplishment truly complete. She likely had a weapon, easily a gun, stashed away in her handbag, and they knew bringing Mary there would put her in danger. SHE had been the target the entire time, she would be the most likely person for Vivian to target in the end. They had to do all they could to make sure she'd be safe while still allowing her the closure she needed to know she was truly safe from her past once Vivian was dealt with.</p><p>"Hello, Mary," Sherlock greeted, relaxing his stance just slightly now that Leena was with him and Mary was safe from anything Vivian might do to her, "John?"</p><p>"On his way," Leena answered for Mary.</p><p>It had been agreed upon, Mary did not enter this building without protection, luckily Mary had been too eager to see the woman who had caused so much destruction and loss in her life finally be caught that she probably would have agreed to walk the halls naked if they said that was the only condition to being in the room with them.</p><p>"Let me introduce Amo," Sherlock gestured to Vivian.</p><p>Mary's gaze snapped to the woman, "<em>You</em> were Amo? You were the person on the phone that time?"</p><p>"Using AGRA as her private assassination unit."</p><p>"Why did you betray us?" Mary shook her head at the woman, truly at a loss for why the people who hired them would want them destroyed.</p><p>"Why does anyone do anything?" Vivian shrugged.</p><p>"She was selling secrets," Leena surmised, having hacked into Vivian's accounts on the way there. It all painted a picture to her and Sherlock of what the woman had been up to all these years.</p><p>"Well, it would be churlish to refuse," Vivian sighed, "Worked very well for a few years. I bought a nice cottage in Cornwall on the back of it."</p><p>"And then you got caught. Probably by the Ambassador…" it would explain the sudden need for the Ambassador to be taken out in what appeared to be an 'accident' and the only way to make it happen was if the people there to rescue her failed, hence the sabotage.</p><p>"You know, I thought I'd had it," Vivian actually chuckled at the memory, "Then she was taken hostage in that coup. I couldn't believe my luck! That bought me a little time."</p><p>"But then you found out your boss had sent AGRA in," Sherlock continued.</p><p>"And your time was up again," Leena nodded, "As soon as she was safe, as soon as they got her out, you were next. So you had to make sure AGRA failed."</p><p>"See, what you didn't know, Mary, was that this one also tipped off the hostage-takers."</p><p>Mary gaped at Vivian, working out now what Sherlock and Leena already had.</p><p>"Lady Smallwood gave the order," Vivian recounted, moving to sit on the bench, facing them this time, her handbag on her lap, which drew Leena's eye as the woman was holding it in a very precise and not-comfortable way, "But I sent another one to the terrorists with a nice little clue about her codename should anyone have an enquiring mind. Seemed to do the trick."</p><p>"And you thought your troubles were over," Mary realized.</p><p>"I was <em>tired</em>," Vivian sighed, "Tired of the mess of it all. I just wanted some peace, some clarity. The hostages were killed, AGRA too," she glanced at Mary, "Or so I thought. My secret was safe. But apparently not. Just a little peace. That's all you wanted too, wasn't it? A family, home. Really, I understand."</p><p>Leena's gaze remained fixed on Vivian's handbag, the woman lifting it, as though she was going to stand, but she didn't, which meant there was something IN the bag she was shifting. Their theory about a concealed weapon was confirmed in just how the woman moved to put her hand on top of the bag, but didn't do anything else with it. She tried her best not to show how she was tensing at the knowledge that a weapon could go off at any moment, she didn't want Vivian to know they'd worked out her advantage but she needed to be prepared to move or duck at a moment's notice.</p><p>"So just let me get out of here, right? Let me just walk away. I'll vanish. I'll go forever. What d'you say?"</p><p>"After what you did?!" Mary demanded, advancing on the woman.</p><p>"Mary, no!" Leena reached out and pulled Mary back to her, just as the woman stood and aimed the pistol she'd 'hidden' in her purse at Mary. Mary held up her hands and stepped back on Leena's left.</p><p>"I was never a field agent," Vivian seemed to assure them, though it only made Leena tense more to know the woman had no official training wielding a gun and, therefore, her aim could be terrible, she could hit something or someone else than her target, "I always thought I'd be rather good."</p><p>"Well, you handled the operation in Tbilisi very well," Sherlock muttered.</p><p>"Thanks."</p><p>"For a secretary," he added.</p><p>"Sherwood, don't…" Leena tried to cut in, but he gave her a look, asking her to trust him.</p><p>"What?" Vivian glared at Sherlock, clearly offended.</p><p>Which was his point, Leena knew.</p><p>He wanted her attention off of Mary, off either of them, and on him. If <em>he</em> could only keep her distracted, keep her focused on him a few minutes longer, it would be just enough time, he was sure of it. And he would stop, as soon as she got too furious, let Leena talk her down, draw it out even more…</p><p>"Can't have been easy all those years, sitting in the back keeping your mouth shut when you knew you were cleverer than most of the people in the room."</p><p>"I didn't do this out of jealousy!" Vivian insisted.</p><p>"No?" Sherlock scoffed, "Same old drudge, day in, day out, never getting out there where all the excitement was. Just back to your little flat on Wigmore Street. They've taken up the pavement outside the Post Office there. The local clay on your shoes is very distinctive. Yes, your little flat."</p><p>"How do you know?" Vivian breathed.</p><p>Sherlock could have gone for the easy answer, said Leena hacked into her files and transactions. But he was buying time, he had to make it as long-winded as possible.</p><p>"Well, on your salary it would have to be modest and you spent all the money on that cottage, didn't you, and what are you, widowed or divorced?" he glanced at the gold band around her finger, "Wedding ring's at least thirty years old and you've moved it to another finger. That means you're sentimentally attached to it but you're not still married. I favor widowed, given the number of cats you share your life with."</p><p>"Sherlock…" even Mary tried to speak, getting nervous, seeing what he was doing and really, between the two of them, let the woman shoot at the one actually wearing the damn bulletproof vest.</p><p>But he kept on, because he'd made a vow that Mary would always be ok, that Leena would always be safe and protected, "Two Burmese and a tortoiseshell, judging by the cat hairs on your cardigan. A divorcee's more likely to look for a new partner, a widow to fill the void left by her dead husband."</p><p>"Sherwood," Leena reached out to touch his arm with her right hand, standing in between him and Mary, keeping her gaze on the gun, how Vivian's hand was starting to shake.</p><p>"Pets do that, or so I'm told, and there's clearly no one new in your life, otherwise you wouldn't be spending your Friday nights in an aquarium. That probably accounts for the drink problem, too. The slight tremor in your hand, the red wine stain ghosting your top lip. So yes. I say jealousy <em>was</em> your motive after all, to prove how good you are…to make up for the inadequacies of your little life."</p><p>No one but Vivian looked over to where Mycroft and Lestrade stepped into the room with three uniformed officers, the three had been expecting them to arrive any moment.</p><p>Sherlock smirked, it was exactly as he'd calculated how long it would take to arrive, given starting location and traffic. He'd done what he had to do. Time was up.</p><p>"Well, Mrs. Norbury," Mycroft nearly sneered, "I must admit this is unexpected."</p><p>"Vivian Norbury, who outsmarted them all," Sherlock smirked, "All except Sherlock Holmes," he glanced at Leena, noting her gaze locked on the pistol, and back to Vivian, holding out his hand to her for the weapon, "There's no way out."</p><p>"So it would seem," the woman gave a rueful smile, but made no move to lower her gun, "You've seen right through me, Mr. Holmes."</p><p>Leena tensed beside him, the fact that the woman hadn't lowered the gun <em>despite</em> the situation, being surrounded and caught…she wasn't going to give up. She was going to shoot at least one person in this room and it didn't fit the profile that it would be herself. Mary had been their initial fear, but when Sherlock went on his tangent…she knew, it would be him now. And she knew he didn't think the woman would actually DO it, not if she had refused to get her hands dirty and used AGRA instead.</p><p>"It's what I do," Sherlock declared.</p><p>"Maybe I can still surprise you," the woman merely lifted the gun to aim at him.</p><p>"Come on," Lestrade tried to speak, "Be sensible!"</p><p>Leena knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that there was no sense to be had. She had seen this, so many times in her nightmares, first with Mary holding the gun, then Moriarty, then any other one of Sherlock's many enemies. All of it ending the same way, her there, unable to stop it, unable to save him, watching as he fell and died in front of her…</p><p>"No, I don't think so," Vivian remarked.</p><p>The poor woman. So focused on the trained assassin and the consulting detective, she appeared to forget that, not only was their a profiler there who could read her intention and actions easily, but that said profiler was also Sherlock Holmes's wife, a wife who had already endured her husband suffering a gunshot wound once before and sworn <em>never</em> to allow it to happen again.</p><p>Leena was already turning to push Sherlock out of the way before Vivian pulled the trigger.</p><p>But bullets were fast, faster than people.</p><p>Sherlock fell to the ground from the shove...</p><p>…and Leena tripped over her feet from the force of the impact of a bullet ripping into her chest, near her left shoulder, falling to the ground.</p><p>"Surprise," Vivian murmured, two police rushing at her to disarm her, though truly she <em>was</em> more surprised by the events that transpired than that she'd fired the gun.</p><p>Mary was already at Leena's side, pressing her hands down on the wound as hard as she could, ignoring the scream Leena gave at the pain of it, how she writhed. Sherlock scrambled to her side, half crawling across the floor to get to her, reaching out to her face, to turn her head to him, keep her gaze away from the blood pouring out of her shoulder.</p><p>"We need an ambulance!" Mary snapped at Mycroft, Lestrade having hurried over to restrain Vivian when she struggled.</p><p>"Leena, Leena!" Sherlock shook her head slightly, trying to get her to focus her cloudy, painfilled eyes on him, "Look at me! Everything's fine. It's gonna be ok…"</p><p>"John!" Mary called out as the man rushed into the room.</p><p>It took John two seconds before he was running to join them, the first at the shock that his worst fear, coming in to see his wife lying dead on the ground, wouldn't happen…the second because his best friend's wife and his own wife's best friend was in the middle of doing just that.</p><p>"It's alright, it's alright," Sherlock kept insisting to Leena, trying not to think about how the grip she had on one of his wrists was trembling and growing weaker, "Just keep looking at me."</p><p>"Shit!" John cursed, having assessed the wound, "It's hit an artery!"</p><p>"Where's the ambulance!?" Mary moved to John's other side to help apply more pressure, trying to move her hand to the back of Leena's shoulder to press against the exit wound, and her eyes snapped to John, "It hit the bone too," she told him, grave.</p><p>"Fuck!" John nearly hissed out, managing to merely mouth it.</p><p>An artery and bone made it far more complicated and deadly a situation.</p><p>"Leena, Leena!" Sherlock tried to shake her head as her eyes began to flutter, "Jacqueline!"</p><p>Leena winced, fighting to stay conscious but she could still hear, despite the ringing in her ears, she knew enough of gunshot wounds to know this was very, <em>very</em> bad, "Sher…Sherwood…"</p><p>"Stay with me," Sherlock kept his eyes on her, trusting John and Mary to help with her wound, he had to keep her conscious and calm, "Stay with me. You'll be ok…"</p><p>Leena swallowed hard, seeing black spots on her vision, her arm going numb and cold beside her which was never a good sigh, "Lock…"</p><p>"No," Sherlock shook his head, "Don't. Don't!"</p><p>"Locksley," she whimpered out, her voice trembling even as she tried to smile at him, "It's…not good."</p><p>"It'll be <em>fine</em>," he insisted, it HAD to be fine, "Liberty…" his voice cracked, "Liberty<em> needs</em> you…"</p><p>"She…she has…you," Leena tried to get out, but it was getting harder and harder to focus, she felt <em>so</em> cold…so very <em>cold</em>, "Locksley…"</p><p>He shook his head, "No," his voice caught, "<em>I</em> need you too," and cracked.</p><p>"Always with you," Leena reassured him, her hand letting go of his wrist to touch his face, "Sherlock…"</p><p>"Jacqueline don't," he begged, tears falling from his eyes now, "Don't leave me."</p><p>"Tell..." Leena gasped, tears welling and falling from her own eyes too, "Tell Liberty…" she shuddered with a painful jolt as the Watsons applied more pressure, "I love her."</p><p>"Tell her yourself," he continued to plead, "Tell her when…when you're better, when you're holding her."</p><p>She sniffled, trying so hard to focus on him, "I love you."</p><p>He nodded, "I love you too."</p><p>She let out a strangled noise as a pain shot through her from the wound, trying to focus on him once more, needing to see him and his eyes and his smile and just…him, "I love…love you…Sherlock," she tried to get out, but even she could hear the slur in her words, the way her blinking was slowing, her eyes rolling, blurring the room, her ears ringing so much it felt like white noise was all she could hear...</p><p>"Leena," Sherlock shook her head once more when her eyes began to flutter too much, "Leena!" he could see her fighting to stay awake, but it was too much and her eyes began to close, "Wake up!" he shook her harder, "Jacqueline! Wake up! <em>Wake up</em>! Stay with me! Leena! No!" he shouted, starting to struggle when Mary tried to pull him away from her.</p><p>He hadn't even noticed the paramedics had arrived, hadn't heard the sirens of the approaching ambulance or the stomping of feet down the halls of the aquarium. He hadn't even seen the people swarming around his wife until Mary was pulling him away from her.</p><p>He must have been more in shock than anyone realized for Mary was able to do so with only help from Mycroft to hold him back, John maintaining pressure on Leena's shoulder while the others got to work, getting her on a gurney and rushing her out of the room, when Sherlock promptly collapsed to his knees, his world spinning…</p><p>~8~</p><p>The steady beeping of the heart monitor had been the only comfort Sherlock Holmes could find when he had <em>finally</em> been allowed into Leena's room. She had been lying, unconscious, on a hospital bed, hooked up to too many machines. The blood loss, the surgery to repair the bones in her shoulder, the trauma of it all…</p><p>She was alive, but asleep, and they didn't know when or…or if…she might wake up.</p><p>The blood, the bone, the trauma...</p><p>Those three words kept repeating in is mind as he looked down at his wife.</p><p>IF, too.</p><p>There was no way for the doctors to tell if she'd wake up. She was alive. But she may not stay that way. And his entire world had crashed down around him in mere seconds and he didn't know what to do, how to cope, how to...</p><p>He may have lost everything, Leena, because of his cockiness.</p><p>He'd already lost other things.</p><p>John wasn't going to be speaking to him much, if at all, that much was clear. This time, this close call, had been too much for him to handle. Because Vivian had been the one to dismantle AGRA, Vivian could have easily shot Mary, it could have been <em>Mary</em> lying on the floor dying or dead and John couldn't handle that. SHERLOCK had called them there, Mary was there because of him, and Mary had been the accidental target all along.</p><p>John couldn't handle that, knowing it really could have been Mary dead, leaving him and their son.</p><p>It was too dangerous, finally too dangerous for even John Watson to abide.</p><p>He'd taken one look at Sherlock after they'd made it to the hospital, Mary taking him, trying to get him to a chair as his world imploded and nothing made sense and the white noise was everywhere. He'd taken one look, grabbed Mary's hand, told him to 'stay the hell away from us' and stormed out, much to Mary's protests.</p><p>So he'd sat there, unmoving, unseeing, unresponsive, till a doctor had found him, familiar enough with Sherlock Holmes being around the hospital for his experiments to make the connection to the Jacqueline Holmes that had been brought in. He'd been informed of what happened, how the surgery had gone, and the complications that could arise from it.</p><p>It was all a murmur in his mind though, muddled, incoherent jabber when all he wanted was to see Leena alive and smiling at him like she had with Liberty in her arms.</p><p>He hadn't gotten that.</p><p>He'd gotten mere minutes of her unresponsive and seeming to be kept alive only by machines, in his mind, before the doctors were insisting he leave and allow her to rest.</p><p>In a fashion so unlike him, he'd merely nodded and walked out, in a daze, another thought coming to him that he <em>had</em> to get back to 221B, he had to get back to Liberty. He'd <em>promised</em> he would take care of her, he'd promised <em>Leena</em>, and he <em>never</em> broke a promise to her.</p><p>Mary or John, probably Mary, had already informed Mrs. Hudson about what happened, the woman was beside herself, clutching Liberty and promising the small girl that everything would be ok.</p><p>He'd merely taken his daughter in his arms, tried not to break down at the sight of her grey eyes, her mother's eyes, looking back at him, and thanked Mrs. Hudson for her assistance. The woman had gone on and on about how she'd make him a cup of tea or a sandwich or a bottle for Liberty or <em>anything</em>, what did he need?</p><p>He'd merely looked at her, blank-faced he was sure, and asked her, very simply, to utter the word 'Norbury' if she ever thought he was being full of himself or too cocky.</p><p>She'd been understandably confused, both by his request and by how monotone and assumingly unaffected he appeared. Just…staring and holding his child but not reacting to anything, not responding to her questions about Leena or offers to help. She'd been understandably worried at his behavior, too.</p><p>He'd just thanked her and walked up to 221B with Liberty, shutting the door behind him, and moving to his armchair to sit down with his daughter. He stared across the room for a moment, before he looked down at Liberty as she shifted in his arms, wiggling and flailing her little arms about.</p><p>He caught one of her hands in his fingers, clenching his jaw so it wouldn't tremble at the squeal and happy giggle she let out, the girl so unaware of the fate her mother was fighting against. He couldn't bear it. He stood and moved to place liberty in the small carry cot they'd set up in the flat, left next to the sofa before they'd been carrying the girl to meet Mrs. Hudson properly.</p><p>He straightened and turned, moving to the bookshelf, to the Robin Hood book, to the…</p><p>Where was it?</p><p>He frowned, seeing the needle he kept there, full of morphine, was gone.</p><p>He closed his eyes, remembering how Leena had distracted him, kissed him the last time he tried to use it, how it had been stepped on, crushed, and he never felt the need to replace it since he had her, his own brand of morphine, his own drug supplier, dealing out whatever he needed to make him feel good with just a kiss.</p><p>He let the book hang in his hand by the front cover, nearly slumping at the realization there would be no drugs, that there could be <em>no</em> <em>drugs</em>, reminded of the promise he'd made to his wife…when something fell from between the last few pages and clinked on the floor. He looked down to see a CD resting there. He frowned, picking it up and turning it over to see 'For you, Locksley' written on it in Leena's handwriting.</p><p>He moved over to his laptop, pushing the disc in and sitting, tense, waiting for whatever…</p><p>A video popped up, of the bedroom, their bedroom, he could recognize by the items scattered about it had been during his false drug den incident, when he'd been trying to get to Magnussen, it had been what Leena hadn't wanted the others to go into the bedroom for, it had been what she was recording with the video camera that had the others sputtering when the saw it facing the bed. He'd never seen the actual video. She'd merely said she put it where he would find it when he needed it and he hadn't needed to look for it since.</p><p>Leena was smiling at him from the screen, "Bonjour, Locksley!" she greeted, putting more emphasis on her accent the way she knew he loved, before letting it drop with a laugh, "You left a sort of accidental message for John, once up on a time and I thought…" her smile grew a little sad, a little serious, "I thought I should too, for you. Because I know how you can get," she rolled her eyes, "When you're stressed and upset and angry and scared," she finished softly, looking back at him, "Especially when I'm not there to help you through it."</p><p>She looked down a moment, considering her words and Sherlock had to pause the video, to look at her, to look at the memory of her he wanted to keep in his mind palace, not the image of her hooked up to wires he knew would never be deleted even if he could. His mind palace was pre-set to remember anything and everything pertaining to Leena, even when it broke his heart.</p><p>He swallowed hard and took a breath, pressing play.</p><p>Leena looked back up at the camera, "Hopefully I'm just out to the shops for some more milk and a case is getting you all worked up," she considered it, "Actually, I'm going to completely say that's the only reason I'm not there, because, really Locksley, nothing short of <em>death</em> would <em>ever</em> take me away from you."</p><p>Sherlock flinched at that, but kept watching.</p><p>"Whatever it is, however hard it seems," Leena continued, "You <em>can</em> do it. You can solve the unsolvable, you can catch the uncatchable, and you can do the undoable. You always have, you're<em> Sherlock Holmes</em>!" she laughed and beamed at him, "Don't be too hard on yourself Locksley," she added, "For as long as I have known you, you <em>always</em> give your all and your best and you <em>never</em> stop until you've won. So win," she encouraged, "Keep fighting, keep thinking, keep hoping. Keep loving," she added, "Me, preferably."</p><p>Which made him laugh.</p><p>"Because I <em>do</em> love you, Locksley," she told him, "More than you will <em>ever</em> know and longer than you could ever guess. You're it for me, it's always been you, from the moment you said hello and called me a net…"</p><p>Sherlock chuckled and sniffled a bit, recalling that disastrous first meeting where he'd mispronounced 'fille' as 'filet' when attempting to greet her in French.</p><p>"You were something wonderful," Leena recalled, "And I will always consider myself the luckiest woman that you let me into your heart, Locksley. And I am so <em>proud</em> of you for opening your heart to others, to John, to Mary. I'm always proud of you. I'm always impressed by you, no matter what you do. Whether it's how impressively fast you can solve cases, or how impressively rude you can be."</p><p>He smiled at that.</p><p>"Whatever you are, Locksley, whatever you become, I will always be proud of you and I will always, <em>always</em> love you."</p><p>The Leena on camera opened her mouth, as though to say more, when her phone pinged and she moved off screen to answer it moments before the footage cut off. He knew what happened, that had been when the drug den had been busted by John and he'd needed help ensuring his cover wasn't completely blown.</p><p>Leena had been there for him then, always having his back, always with her faith in him, always supporting him. She had faith that anything he set his mind to, he could do.</p><p>Right now though…he didn't know if HE had that faith in himself.</p><p>He stood, moving back to Liberty and picking her up, the baby already dozing away, snuggling more into his arms as he gazed down at her, this small thing, this mixture of himself and Leena.</p><p>He had failed his friends.</p><p>He had failed his wife.</p><p>But he would make damned sure he<em> didn't</em> fail his daughter too.</p>
<hr/><p>
  
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Don't kill me! Don't kill me! I'm SO sorry for that, for Leena's fate hanging in the balance. Some thoughts on why...</p><p>Mary's non-death</p><p>I could not see it happening how it did in the show if at all. Because...Problem: Leena's husband was shot, point blank shot, and by someone she 'trusted.' Solution: get him a bullet proof vest, now Sherlock can't be shot by anyone as their likely target will be his chest.<br/>Problem: someone seems to be targeting Mary Watson and they're now going to confront said person who is not likely to be highly trained.<br/>Solution: lend her the bullet proof vest because if anyone's getting shot, it's the target.</p><p>Final situation: Mary cannot be shot where she was shot and die if she's wearing the bulletproof vest, which she was.</p><p>However!</p><p>If Mary and Leena are in the same room as Sherlock and a shooter and a gun goes off heading for Sherlock...who is more likely to jump in its path? Friend or wife? Wife.</p><p>Especially when wife is a profiler and knows the signs of someone about to shoot.<br/>Especially when said husband was already shot before and said wife had nightmares of him dying from that wound.</p><p>Leena's been in situations where she's been held at gunpoint and seen guns go off enough to know she wouldn't just jump in front of it. She'd shove Sherlock aside. But this now means that Leena is in the path of the bullet and is turned at a different angle than Mary. A different part of her body would be in line of the bullet.</p><p>I know John storming off and taking Mary with him may seem a bit 'what?' at the moment, since it wasn't Mary who was killed, we got a small glimpse into John's mind, but we'll see much more about it in the next 2 chapters for why THIS was too much for him :(</p><p>Now, next point I wanted to touch on, Liberty and Leena's pregnancy.</p><p>We have a Liberty! :D It's a girl! :D Sherlock's a daddy! :D And I feel like a horrible person to give him that joy and happiness of his daughter in his arms and then rip it away with his wife bleeding out in his arms :'( HIS world is falling apart, but right now HE is Liberty's whole world. How do you keep yourself together for your child when you are shattering? :(</p><p>I actually agonized over whether it would be better to have Leena discover she was pregnant at the start of the episode, or here at the end. Like the bullet wound wasn't as severe and she's getting normal bloodwork done and the doctors find out but with how much damage the bullet wound did to Mary, I couldn't see Leena just getting off scot free with a scratch. Bullets are dangerous and guns are serious weapons, and if an artery is hit it is serious :(</p><p>I couldn't be cruel though and have her be pregnant at that point either though. Because, 1. that's just too much to have the baby in danger like that. 2. Vivian would likely have aimed specifically for the baby and not Sherlock. 3. I could not see John, Mary, Sherlock, Mycroft, Lestrade, hell even Mrs. Hudson allowing Leena anywhere near there.</p><p>That, and the timing, how long I saw Mary away, how long I felt John could wait before tracking her down, put Leena at right about when they find Mary again and not when they get back to London. With the shock and scare of AJ's attack, I couldn't see Leena not going into labor then and there since she would have been near ready to pop anyway.</p><p>I hope you like the name though, a combination of a name Sherlock wanted, a reference to the Watsons, and a connection to Leena for a girl :) And then a connection to Sherlock, a reference to John, and a name Leena wanted in 'David Rossi' for a boy if it was :) </p><p>Timeline:</p><p>Early May - Mary goes on the lamb. Given how desperate the person was to get the busts and find Mary Sherlock would NOT wait long after to inform Mary she's in danger. Leena is now 5 months along.<br/>Early May-End of August 2015, Mary is on the lamb 4 months, because it had to be long enough for Hamish to develop a sense of sounds around him and respond to John, enough that Mary needed to be 'caught up on' things. I couldn't see her staying in one place long, but constantly travelling to throw off people as much as possible, but long enough to think she's done it, not long enough for John and Sherlock to just sit around and twiddle thumbs. Leena is now 9 months pregnant and ready to pop and neither John nor Sherlock are willing to risk life and limb to tell her not to go with them after Mary. If they were afraid of Mary, being a super assassin, they're terrified of Leena, because she's married to Sherlock and has profiled him, John, AND Mary and could probably come up with some very, very terrifying punishments. This is also the point, round about, where Hamish would begin to recognize some sounds as words and such.<br/>Early/mid September 2015 - The group returns to London with Liberty, who goes to stay with Mrs. Hudson while the team confronts Vivian.</p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. The Lying Detective: Downward Spiral</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This chapter is going to be very Leena-lite, for obvious reasons :(</p><p>Warning: This chapter's also going to mention some very self-depreciating and spiraling thoughts/behaviors when it comes to Sherlock, so just a warning that this chapter is heavy on some depression elements :(</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>John Watson was angry and terrified, to a point where not even Mary could talk him round, and that said something to Sherlock Holmes.</p><p>Granted it had only been a fortnight, but the fact that Mary was failing in that endeavor spoke volumes as it hadn't taken her that long to work him round after he'd 'returned from the dead.' According to Mary, she had spent the entire time trying to convince John to just <em>talk</em> to his friend, but now he wouldn't even speak to HER any more than necessary. He hadn't wanted that to happen, or at least, he was sure, at one point he hadn't. It was harder for him to remember things recently.</p><p>Despite Mary's efforts, Sherlock was of the impression John was right to do as he was.</p><p>But the voice in his head that sounded like Leena told him he was being an ass.</p><p>Leena…</p><p>Sherlock let out a breath, jolting awake from where his head had been drooping while he laid nearly sprawled out on his armchair, trying to pay attention to a client. It was difficult to do, pay attention to anything that is. His head was all full of…stuff, so much unimportant <em>stuff</em> he was so tempted to just delete all of it from his Mind Palace.</p><p>But then how would he continue to impress Leena when she woke up?</p><p>He flinched at that, playing it off as a crick in his neck as he tried to sit up more on the chair. She <em>would</em> wake up, it wasn't an IF, it was a <em>when</em> she healed enough from her wound and was strong enough she'd open her eyes and come back to him. And <em>when</em> she did…he had to be ready, ready to be better than he'd <em>ever</em> been.</p><p>Which was, admittedly, hard to do when he could barely remember how he should be in the first place.</p><p>Words he spoke to Leena so long ago came back to him, he couldn't be him without her, and right now she was further away from him than she had ever been before.</p><p>It wasn't important, how he was or is or anything, HE didn't matter. Right now the<em> only</em> thing that mattered was making sure everything was ready for when Leena woke up and making sure Liberty was happy, healthy, and safe.</p><p>That. Was. It.</p><p>So what if John didn't want to speak to him or see him ever again? So what if Mary kept trying to do wellness checks on him or ring him up? So what if Mycroft had constant surveillance on him since the only time he left the flat was to visit Leena and absolutely nothing else? So what if Mrs. Hudson seemed on the verge of tears each time she took a look at him? So what?<em> Who cared?</em></p><p>He was alive, he was functioning, he was caring for Liberty, and he <em>could</em> do it. He <em>had</em> to do it, he had to keep himself together long enough for Leena to wake up.</p><p>…she <em>had</em> to wake up.</p><p><em>She had to</em>.</p><p>Until then, he needed to keep an income, keep busy, keep his mind as sharp as he could manage between remembering the visiting hours at the hospital and being there first thing to sit with Leena, and he had to remember when Liberty needed feeding and burping and changing and what stories he'd already read to her and how to change her nappy, between working on his experiments and finding just the right thing to help his wife when she was out of hospital. He rarely took clients, because there was too much to do and not enough hours and why do anything as wasteful and time consuming as <em>sleep</em> when Moriarty's last game was still out there?</p><p>Anyone looking at him would think him a mess, with his disheveled appearance, haggard face, bags under his eyes, how he'd gotten thinner, and how he went from a boneless heap on the sofa to raging about the place like there was something priceless hidden in the cushions, making a worse mess of the place than it had already become in just the 2 weeks he'd been alone.</p><p>(2 weeks and 3 days, but he rounded down, he had to round down because tomorrow would be 4 days and too close to 3 weeks...)</p><p>Leena's voice would agree with them, he <em>was</em> a mess, he was spiraling and he knew it, nearing the point where he was running on fumes but refusing to stop.</p><p>He couldn't stop, he <em>couldn't</em>.</p><p>Moriarty's game was out there, criminals were everywhere, there was a threat around each corner, and he'd made a lot of enemies over his time. He had to protect his family, he had to stop them all, he had to keep his daughter safe.</p><p>Never before had he done so much freelance work for Scotland Yard, without asking, without entreaty. As soon as Liberty was asleep after they'd returned from visiting Leena, he was on his laptop, hacking into their files and solving their crimes, as many as he could before Liberty woke up again. He would go to the hospital with it, sit with Leena, explain the cases to her and how he was solving them, telling her that it would be a safer world for her to wake up to, that no one would ever harm her again, so she just had to wake up and see it.</p><p>She hadn't woken up yet.</p><p>So, clearly, he hadn't done a good enough job.</p><p>He winced when something pricked his finger and looked down to see he'd been careless with the 'evidence' his latest client had brought him, a folded piece of paper he'd just given himself a papercut on.</p><p>"Three years ago," the woman sitting across from him, in the client's chair, was saying, "My father told me he wanted to kill someone. One word, Mr. Holmes, and it changed my world forever. Just one word."</p><p>He rolled his eyes at the woman, dramatics. Was that supposed to lure him in or something? Faith, he recalled her name being, was sitting there in an ankle-length, long-sleeved, red dress, gripping a cane in her hand, clenching her hands over the top of it.</p><p>"What word?" Sherlock asked, if just to see if the answer would be interesting. He reached for his mobile, checking it as he did at least a hundred times an hour for any update or notification from the hospital. His hand was shaking until he took the phone in both of his to steady it, nothing.</p><p>Each time he checked, each time he hoped for the notice that Leena was awake, but each time there was nothing.</p><p>For two weeks, there had been <em>nothing</em>.</p><p>A voice that sounded like John's said it shouldn't take this long, that the longer it took the less likely waking was to happen...</p><p>He flinched at the thought, twitching his head to the side to cast it off.</p><p>"A name," Faith spoke.</p><p>"What name?"</p><p>"I can't remember," she sighed, "I can't remember who my father wanted to kill and I don't know if he ever did it."</p><p>"Well, you've changed," he remarked, absently searching for a picture of Faith and her father on his phone to see just who the man was, seeing if there was anything to deduce about him from the picture, "You no longer top up your tan and your roots are showing. Letting yourself go?"</p><p>'<em>You're one to talk, Locksley,</em>' Leena's voice spoke in his head, '<em>HOW long has it been since you've had a shower, again?</em>'</p><p>He shook his head sharply, a ping in his heart, thinking back to Baskerville, how she'd teasingly remarked that she never complained about how he could let his hygiene go a bit between cases. It was worse now.</p><p>Everything was worse now.</p><p>What was the point in hygiene? What care did he have for himself?<em> He</em> wasn't important, his girls were. Liberty needed to be clean, Leena needed to be healthy, to hell with him, just…just let THEM be ok.</p><p>Faith was watching him during his little inner crisis, "Do you ever look in the mirror and want to see someone else?" she wondered.</p><p>"No," he said.</p><p>It was a lie.</p><p>He hadn't before, not once in his life…until Leena was shot in front of him. Now he couldn't look in the mirror without seeing the failure he was, without wanting to see someone worthy of his girls and the life they had been about to build, to see someone who deserved the faith Leena had in him because he'd certainly let her down now and she was paying the price for it.</p><p>"Do you own an American car?" he changed the subject, needing something, <em>anything</em> else to talk about.</p><p>"I'm sorry?" Faith blinked.</p><p>"No, not American," he waved it off, "Left-hand drive, that's what I mean."</p><p>"No. Why…why do you ask?"</p><p>He glanced at her, frowning, for a moment genuinely not sure why he'd asked, "Not sure, actually," he admitted with a shrug, "Probably just noticed something."</p><p>He got up. He was slowing down. He knew the signs by now, he'd tracked them, catalogued them, mathematically worked out his rate and when he would need his next fix to keep going without being so slow he risked his daughter. He swayed a bit as he got upright, blinking rapidly from the rush of blood travelling through him. Hmm, he'd have to add a bit of sugar to the mix.</p><p>As he blinked, though, he caught sight of a straight dark line of dirt on the side of Faith's skirt.</p><p>"Are you ok?" Faith frowned at him, seeing him swaying before he steadied himself.</p><p>"Oh, of course you don't own a car," he ignored her, not about to give <em>anyone</em> any confirmation that he wasn't as well as he was projecting, not about to risk anyone thinking him not at the top of his game and targeting his family, or thinking he was unfit to care for his daughter and removing her from his custody, "You don't need one, do you? Living in isolation, no human contact, no visitors…" he held up the paper to look at the writing on it once more, using it more to focus his eyes than actually looking at it or reading it, the room had gone a bit blurry…</p><p>"Ok," Faith nervously began to fiddle with her necklace, "How do you know that?"</p><p>"It's all here, isn't it?" he waved the paper around, annoyed. This meeting was taking longer than it should have, it was encroaching into his fix time, "Look," he held the paper towards her, pointing at various points of it, "Cost-cutting's clearly a priority for you. Look at the size of your kitchen, teeny tiny," he moved to the window to glance out of it, "Must be a bit annoying when you're such a keen cook."</p><p>"I don't understand…"</p><p>"Hang on a minute..." he frowned, moving back to the window, looking out of it, "I was looking out of the window. Why was I doing that?" he'd thought it was to check that the streets were clear, no threat in sight…but this wasn't his normal time to do so and it wasn't his normal method…so he'd glimpsed out of it for another reason?</p><p>He shook his head, he needed a fix, he needed to be faster. This was slow, too slow, forgetfulness was another sign he had to hurry things up.</p><p>"I don't know!" Faith answered.</p><p>"Me either. Must have had a reason," he turned to her, "It'll come back to me," before he returned to the paper, moving across the room, if he could get closer to his next fix then he wouldn't have to waste time getting there once Faith was gone, "Presumably you downsized when you…when you left your job," he nibbled on the edge of the paper, "And maybe when you ended your relationship."</p><p>He winced, a stabbing pain hitting him in the front of his head, and moved to drop down on his armchair. He glanced to the side, frowning at the small pile of cups sitting there, all empty. Damn it, he couldn't even sneak a bit now…</p><p>"You can't know that," Faith declared.</p><p>'<em>Of course you can,</em>" Leena's voice chuckled.</p><p>His lip curled at the corner, "Course, I can," he repeated, "There wasn't anything physical going on, was there?" he held up the paper, "Quite some time, in fact. There, see? It's obvious."</p><p>Faith just looked upset, "You can't tell things like that from a piece of paper."</p><p>"Think I just did, didn't I? I'm sure that was me."</p><p>"How?"</p><p>'<em>Because you're Sherlock Holmes!</em>' Leena's voice laughed.</p><p>"Dunno," he shrugged, and waved it off, "Just sort of…happens, really," he winced, recalling the last time he'd deduced someone like that, hearing the sound of the gunshot in his ears, seeing the blood on his hands, his wife's blood, "It's…like a reflex. I can't stop it."</p><p>'<em>Nor should you,</em>' Leena's voice reassured him the moment his thoughts began to drift to the contemplation that maybe he should stop it, '<em>You're amazing, Locksley. Truly fantastique!</em>'</p><p>He shook his head, he couldn't stop it, he didn't want to, but he had to get <em>better</em> at it, he had to know, he had to KNOW what people were planning to do. He had to…to be more like Leena. He'd deduced the victims, the crime, but Leena…SHE had profiled the criminal, she had known Vivian had a gun and would use it when she used it.</p><p>He had to do that, he had to deduce the criminal too…</p><p>But right now, as much as he tried to think about what Faith told him of her father, his eyes kept going to her, to her shoulders and her hair, both of which were damp.</p><p>'<em>It IS raining out,</em>' Leena offered, '<em>And she has no coat.</em>'</p><p>"Coat," he sat up more at that, looking at Faith.</p><p>"I don't have a coat," the woman said slowly, not sure where he was going with it.</p><p>"Yeah, that's what I just noticed," he muttered, pushing himself up and heading straight for the kitchen, when the Leena in his mind was making observations for him, it was <em>bad</em>, he needed his fix, NOW. He stumbled when he reached the wall though, the moving when the initial standing unbalanced him only made him more unsteady. He curled his hand into a fist and lightly banged on the wall, "I wonder why?"</p><p>The plastic covering hanging in front of the kitchen, which he hadn't taken down (because what if Leena's nose was still bionic when she came back?), moved and Bill Wiggins peered through, taking one look at Sherlock before he stepped back in.</p><p>"So what do you think?" Faith spoke when nothing was said for a moment or two.</p><p>"Of what?" Sherlock gave her an odd look, before letting out a breath of relief when Wiggins appeared, holding out a teacup of liquid to him.</p><p>"My case."</p><p>Sherlock winced, his face scrunching in a bit of distaste and pain when he downed the drink. It had been scalding and there was too much sugar for his taste, but the coffee…that was <em>exactly</em> what he needed, caffeine, keep him moving, sugar, keep him alert, that was <em>all</em> he needed.</p><p>"Oh," he stretched his mouth a bit, handing the teacup back to Wiggins and holding up a finger for another cup, before turning to Faith, "It's way too weird for me. Go to the police, they're really excellent at dealing with this complicated sort of stuff. Tell them I sent you that ought to get a reaction," he moved over to John's chair and picked up her very large handbag, tossing it to her with a, "Night night."</p><p>He could almost see Leena then, could imagine her shaking her head in exasperation at him as she sighed in his mind's eye.</p><p>'<em>The bag is too heavy, Sherwood,</em>' she spoke, having caught that thought in his mind even when he tried to push it away.</p><p>He just turned and headed for the kitchen, what did he care if the bag was too heavy?</p><p>"Please," Faith stood, getting him to pause just at the plastic sheet, "I have no one else to turn to."</p><p>"Yes, but I'm very busy at the moment," he waved her off, "I have to drink a cup of coffee."</p><p>Or three, if his slowness was anything to go by. He needed more than just two cups now. This was a three cup night apparently. Though he expected it, Liberty had been colicky, for weeks now, crying endlessly some days. He thought it was that the girl knew her mother wasn't there.</p><p>He empathized.</p><p>He felt like crying, too.</p><p>But he couldn't, because he was daddy, and he had to take care of his daughter and his wife and he would not fail, damn it!</p><p>He turned his back on Faith and strode into the kitchen, pushing the plastic aside and grabbing the coffee Wiggins had just dumped two heaping tablespoons of sugar into, downing it in one gulp despite the burn to his throat. He set the cup down, snapping his fingers for Wiggins to get another one ready, as he turned to look at the small laboratory they'd set up on the table. He moved to a clipboard Wiggins kept beside various liquids, frowning at the results...that wouldn't do. Each day was the day Leena could wake up, and each day they didn't work out the experiment was another day he failed to be prepared for her waking.</p><p>"You're my last hope!" Faith continued to remain behind, calling from the sitting room.</p><p>Sherlock rolled his eyes, moving to the plastic and brushing it away to poke his head out, "Really? That's bad luck, isn't it? Goodnight. Go away."</p><p>"What's bad luck?" Wiggins asked as Sherlock spun around and stormed back, setting down another cup of coffee before the man.</p><p>"Stop talking," Sherlock groused, "It makes me aware of your existence."</p><p>And when people were talking, he wasn't able to hear Leena. He'd rather have silence and her voice in his head than anyone else around him right now.</p><p>Wiggins seemed to get the hint for he just slid the cup towards him.</p><p>'<em>It's her handbag, Locksley,</em>' Leena's voice whispered to him as he drank the cup down again, '<em>It's too heavy. She has no coat in this rain, and no one waiting to take her home…</em>' he could almost picture the sorrow in her eyes, the empathy in them, and he could almost ignore the feeling that she wanted him to go after Faith, until she uttered five words that had him rushing out of the flat, '<em>What if it were Liberty?</em>'</p><p>"Stop!" Sherlock shouted, rushing out of the flat and down the stairs, catching Faith just as she opened the door to step out, "Wait!" he winced, leaning heavily against the wall as he nearly fell down the stairs, lightheaded from the jolt, the caffeine needed some time to kick in. But he took a breath and forced the words out, "Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it, do you hear me?" he pointed a warning finger at her, for a brief moment picturing the girl he'd seen in his Mind Palace when he'd been shot, seeing his daughter and not some stranger, "Off it," he ordered, stern, "Off. It."</p><p>"Sorry?" Faith frowned, "What? What are you talking about?"</p><p>"Your skirt," he pointed his finger down to it, blinking at it, clearing the picture of his daughter from his mind.</p><p>"My skirt?"</p><p>"Look at the hem of it! <em>That's</em> what I noticed. I'm…" he let out a breath, resting his head in his hand a moment, feeling his heart rate picking up again, the caffeine starting to finally work the way he needed it to. Wiggins must have put an extra espresso powder in one of the cups for a boost, "Still catching up with my brain. It's terribly fast," he pointed at her skirt again, at the streak on it, "Those markings. Do you see them? You only get marks like that by trapping the hem of your skirt in a car door but they're on the left-hand side, so you weren't driving, you were in the passenger seat."</p><p>"I came in a taxi," Faith shook her head, really not sure what that had to do with anything.</p><p>"There is no taxi waiting in the street outside. That's what I checked when I went to the window. And you've got all the way to the door and not made any move to phone for one, and look at you. You didn't even bring a coat, in this rain? Now, well, that might mean nothing, except for the angle of the scars on your left forearm, you know, under that sleeve that you keep pulling down," he glanced at that exact sleeve right as she was tugging it in a nervous habit.</p><p>"You never saw them…"</p><p>"No, I didn't, so thank you for confirming my hypothesis," he probably sounded more genuine than he intended to but…some part of his mind recognized the relief he felt at knowing he would be able to spot those signs even on someone trying to hide them if, god forbid, anyone in his family ever reached that point, he would <em>notice</em> and he could <em>help</em>, "Don't really need to check that the angle's consistent with self-harm, do I?"</p><p>"No," she stepped back.</p><p>"Then you can keep your scars. I want to see your handbag."</p><p>"Why?"</p><p>"It's too heavy," he repeated what Leena's voice had been telling him, "You said I was your last hope and now you're going out into the night with no plan on how you're getting home…and a gun."</p><p>He didn't even smirk at being right when she lowered her head in shame.</p><p>'<em>She's someone's daughter, Locksley,</em>' Leena's voice urged in his head.</p><p>He nodded to himself, "Chips."</p><p>"Chips?" she frowned, startled.</p><p>Sherlock merely turned and grabbed a coat from the nearest rack to give to her, "You're suicidal. You're allowed chips, trust me. It's about the only perk," he moved to pull his dressing gown off and hang it on a hook, before grabbing his normal coat. They would go get chips, he would not leave a suicidal person, someone's daughter, alone right now but he also would <em>not</em> allow someone ready to harm themselves and in possession of a gun anywhere near his daughter. The only option was to get her out of the flat.</p><p>"Sherlock?" a voce called, and Mrs. Hudson approached just after Faith had stepped outside, "Are you going out?"</p><p>"I think I remember the way," he mumbled, pointing at the open door, "It's through there, isn't it?"</p><p>"Oh, you're in no state. Look at you…" just because she wasn't in his flat 24/7 didn't mean she wasn't aware of his goings on.</p><p>She saw the food sitting in the fridge, uneaten, some already rotting, not eating.</p><p>She saw the teacups piled up, stained from his coffee, to perk him up.</p><p>She heard him moving about at all hours of the night, not sleeping.</p><p>And…and she saw the lab, what could only be a bloody drug lab he'd cooked up in her home, something she knew would break poor Leena's heart if she saw it, if she knew he'd resorted to that again after so many years. The <em>only</em> thing that kept her quiet, kept her from calling child services, was that Liberty was <em>always</em> taken care of. The girl was always clean and happy and eating well and doted on by Sherlock, even when she was colicky and crying, Sherlock never lost his temper with her or shouted.</p><p>He wasn't taking care of himself, everything he had was given to Liberty.</p><p>And seeing him about to head out, knowing he'd barely slept or eaten in weeks…it was worrying to her.</p><p>Because this wasn't visiting hours at the hospital, so he wasn't going there, and she feared so much for what he might do to himself in such a state.</p><p>"Yeah, well, I've got a friend with me," Sherlock shrugged, heading for the door, pausing to look back at her, "Liberty is sleeping," he checked his watch, he'd timed everything his daughter had done since he brought her home to better attend to her. On the rare nights when the colic didn't disrupt her sleep he could even wager a guess how long she'd be out for, "Should be 5 more hours before she wakes. Please, Mrs. Hudson, look after her if I'm not back before then."</p><p>"Of course," she tried to give him a small smile, but the worry was clear on her face, because she didn't see anyone with him, but she knew that he would do all he could to come back to Liberty.</p><p>They had to see Leena in the morning.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Sherlock stared down at the chips in their cardboard carton, ketchup dripping off one, and trying his best not to think about how Leena had had a craving once for chips, dipped in strawberry sauce, and eaten with pickles. Truly, he had thought himself lucky when Leena seemed to only feel nauseous and not endure morning sickness, he hated her being ill and there being nothing he could do for her, but then the cravings started and he'd honestly documented each concoction to see if there was a pattern so he could anticipate her next craving and surprise her.</p><p>He'd failed.</p><p>No surprise there, he failed at quite a lot when it came to her lately.</p><p>He swallowed hard and forced himself to take the chips and eat them, even though his stomach protested against it. He didn't eat much, not recently, bit of cheese here and there, mostly coffee with excessive amounts of sugar. But he doubted Faith would actually eat or talk if he didn't do so too.</p><p>The rain had begun easing up enough for them to walk with their chips over to a bench by an old church, sitting in silence before he decided to himself that…he would take the case. For a cost. He couldn't say it now though, he wanted to make sure Faith made it through the night, that he got through to her, before he took it up.</p><p>This could have been her last plea, her last cry for help, and knowing someone would work on it might give her the push she needed to finally put an end to everything. He needed her to know he would <em>only</em> work on it so long as she kept living…he had to make her see that he <em>could</em> solve it though.</p><p>"You see the fold in the middle?" he asked, holding up the paper, open, for her to see, doing what he always defaulted to when he needed to prove a point or buy time, deduce, "For the first few months you kept this hidden, folded inside a book. Must have been a tightly packed shelf, going by the severity of the crease. So obviously you were keeping it hidden from someone living in the same house at a level of intimacy where privacy could not be assumed. Conclusion: relationship. Not anymore, though," he pointed to the top of the paper, "There's a pinprick at the top of the paper. For the past few months it's been on open display on a wall. Conclusion: relationship is over. The paper's been exposed to steam and a variety of cooking smells so it must have been on display in the kitchen."</p><p>He smiled a bit when he thought back to a gift Leena had given him once. It had been a simple card that she had mailed to him for his birthday, never forgetting his and always sure to call and text and send him a card and email and anything she could to make his day special even from a distance. He'd gotten the card once and it had clearly been signed and left on her kitchen counter to be mailed out the next day, the envelope smelt of burnt popcorn. He'd had to text her and tease her to be more careful because burning popcorn was a travesty.</p><p>She'd called him an ass for spying on her.</p><p>He'd been called that many times over his life, an 'ass,' but there was always a fondness when Leena did it, a joke, a tease, it was never meant to offend but to remark on his somewhat rude behavior at times…and a parallel to how he was rarely rude to HER.</p><p>He shook his head, lifting the paper to his nose and sniffing it, "Lots of different spices. You're suicidal, alone and strapped for cash, yet you're still cooking to impress. You're keen, then. The kitchen is the most public room in any house, but since any visitor could be expected to ask about a note like this, I have to assume you don't have any. You've isolated yourself."</p><p>"Amazing," Faith breathed.</p><p>'<em>I agree,</em>' Leena mused.</p><p>He smiled, more for the second voice than the first, "I know."</p><p>Faith snorted, "I meant the chips."</p><p>Sherlock actually chuckled at that, that sounded like something Leena would say, and his smile faded with that thought, swallowing hard as he tried to remember, she<em> would</em> wake up, he would hear her say things again, they would be together.</p><p>He glanced up when he heard the sound of a helicopter approaching and stood, walking towards it, smirking when he recognized what it was and how unsubtle Mycroft had gotten in his old age.</p><p>"Let's go for a walk."</p><p>~8~</p><p>"How did you know my kitchen was tiny?" Faith asked as they walked along the streets, their chips long since finished.</p><p>"Look at the fading pattern on the paper," he held up the note, "It's not much but it's enough to know your kitchen window faces east. Now, kitchen noticeboards," he paused, moving towards an empty area of the street and drawing a square in the air, as though it were the noticeboard, "By instinct we place them at eye level where there's natural light," he pointed to an area where she would have hung up the note, "Now look, the sun's only struck the bottom two thirds but the line is straight, so that means we know the paper is facing the window," he turned around and indicated where a window would be, about the normal size, "But because the top section is unaffected we know the sunlight can only be entering the room at a steep angle. If the sunlight was able to penetrate the room when the sun was lower in the sky then the paper would be equally faded top to bottom. But no. It only makes it when the sun is at its zenith, so I'm betting that you live in a narrow street on the ground floor. Now, if steeply angled sunlight manages to hit eye level on the wall opposite the window, then what do we know about the room?" he moved between where he was imagining the window and the noticeboard, and moved closer to the noticeboard, imagining the sunlight creeping up the paper till it was right where the fading occurred, "The room's small."</p><p>"Oh," Faith winced, when a spotlight was shown on them, lifting a hand to cover her eyes and face from the brightness, "Big Brother is watching you!"</p><p>"Literally," Sherlock huffed, "Come on," he nodded to the side, starting to walk again.</p><p>~8~</p><p>"Sex," Faith spoke after they had lapsed into silence for quite some time.</p><p>'<em>Enjoyable,</em>' Leena's voice teased, '<em>VERY enjoyable.</em>'</p><p>Sherlock had to fight a blush from the imaginary words in order to face Faith as they walked along, both sipping on energy drinks now…perhaps he should invest in some of those too, they already had premeasured sugar in the same quantities…easier to more accurately study the effects than trying to get the exact amount of sugar and right level of coffee each time…</p><p>He shook his head, getting distracted, "I'm sorry?"</p><p>"Sex," she repeated, "How did you know I wasn't…getting any?"</p><p>He snorted, "It's all about the blood," he pulled the paper out and pointed to a small stain on it, "This one comes from the very first night. You can see the pen marks over it. I think you discovered that pain stimulated your memory, so you tried it again later. I'm no expert, but I assume that since your lover failed to notice an increasing number of scars over a period of months, that the relationship was no longer intimate."</p><p>"How do you know he didn't notice?"</p><p>"Oh, well, because he would have done something about it," he shrugged.</p><p>Faith eyed him a moment, "Would he?"</p><p>"Wouldn't he? Isn't that what you people do?"</p><p>"Well, that's interesting."</p><p>"What is?"</p><p>"The way you think."</p><p>"Superbly?"</p><p>"Sweetly."</p><p>"I'm <em>not</em> sweet," he muttered, before sighing, "I just…have experience," he remarked, knowing from things Leena had told him over the years that empathy and reciprocity could help talk someone down, "I was hurt, someone noticed."</p><p>"Someone important?" Faith guessed, "Your wife?"</p><p>He glanced at her, "How do you know I'm married?"</p><p>She smiled and just pointed to the hand that was holding the energy drink, the gold band glinting in the streetlamp light.</p><p>He blinked and looked down at it, it was…odd…how comfortable he felt wearing the ring that he didn't even notice it was there. It was like it was always meant to be there and so his mind didn't even register when it got cold in the winters or clanged on something glass or metal…</p><p>"She noticed," Faith surmised, "And she did something about it."</p><p>Sherlock smiled, "Yeah."</p><p>"She saved your life."</p><p>"More than once," Sherlock murmured, before shaking his head, not completely comfortable with sharing more than he already had, "This way," he turned 180.</p><p>"What? We just came that way."</p><p>"I know. It's a plan."</p><p>"What plan?" Faith followed after him.</p><p>He just glanced up at a surveillance camera at an intersection and smirked, raising his can to toast the people watching him, knowing, by now, they'd noticed some sort of pattern or reason for his changing in direction so much.</p><p>'Fuck Off' he'd been spelling in the streets they went down, clearly visible to Mycroft if he had the sense to trace it.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Sherlock sighed as they finally came to a stop from their walk all over London, moving to sit on a bench near the South Bank. He'd used the time to spell out a number of words to Mycroft, like 'bollocks' and hoping the man would get the idea to <em>stop following him</em> after he'd added 'bugger off' too. He absently had a half baguette in his hand, no plans to eat it, though he took Faith nibbling on hers as a sign he had finally gotten through to her enough where she would trust him to know what he was talking about.</p><p>"D'you know why I'm going to take your case?" he asked, "Because of the one impossible thing you've said."</p><p>"What impossible thing?" she glanced at him.</p><p>"You said your life turned on one word."</p><p>"Yes, the name of the person my father wanted to kill."</p><p>"That's the impossible thing. Just that, right there."</p><p>"What's impossible?"</p><p>"Names aren't one word. They're always at least two. Sherlock Holmes, Faith Smith, Santa Claus, Winston Churchill, Napoleon Bonaparte. Actually," he winced, thinking about how that one sort of disproved the others, "Just 'Napoleon' would do."</p><p>"Or Elvis?"</p><p>'<em>Or Cher, or Madonna,</em>' Leena added.</p><p>"Well, I think we can rule both of them out as targets," Sherlock remarked, only just catching himself in time to say 'both of them in stead of 'all of them.'</p><p>"Ok," Faith shrugged, "I got it wrong, then. It wasn't only one word, it can't have been."</p><p>"And you remember quite distinctly that your whole life turned on <em>one</em> word, so that happened, I don't doubt it, but how can that word be a name, a name you instantly recognized that tore your world apart?"</p><p>"Ok, well, how?"</p><p>"No idea," he admitted.</p><p>'<em>Yet,</em>' Leena teased.</p><p>"Yet," he agreed, taking a breath, "But I don't work for free," he added, firm, holding out his hand to her.</p><p>Faith glanced at it and then him, "D'you take cash?"</p><p>He gave her a pointed look, "Not cash, no."</p><p>She stared him down for a moment, before she sighed, reaching into her handbag and pulling out the pistol she'd put there, placing it on his hand.</p><p>He stood, wanting desperately to get the gun as far away from him as he could after what happened with Vivian and Leena. He stumbled somewhat from the sudden shift, but kept moving to the railing by the river's edge, hurling the gun as far away as he could into its waters. He moved, resting his hands on the railing, half shuddering as he relaxed now that the gun was gone.</p><p>"'Taking your own life,'" he murmured, "Interesting expression. Taking it from who? Oh, once it's over, it's not <em>you</em> who'll miss it."</p><p>He flinched, willing his mind not to turn to Leena. Even though she hadn't taken her own life, someone had tried to take his, and she had given hers to stop it.</p><p>NO, he shook his head firmly, no she hadn't <em>given</em> her life yet, she still <em>had</em> her life, she<em> still</em> had it, and she would <em>keep</em> having it and the second she woke up he would make damn sure she kept it forever.</p><p>He tightened his grip on the railing and looked up at the river, only to look away when he caught sight of the Aquarium in the distance. He tried to focus on the river instead, but it was grey, the same grey as Liberty's eyes, as Leena's eyes, and so he looked skyward.</p><p>"Your own death is something that happens to everybody else."</p><p>He understood it, but he hadn't quite comprehended what John and Leena had gone through when he faked his death. To say that out loud…he had a new context for it, for everything now.</p><p><em>Leena</em> was the one who had suffered, through all his cases and plots and tricks. It had been HIS choice to fake his death, though he had hoped Leena and John would have been far away from it when it happened, he hadn't wanted her to see that, but she had been there and he'd needed to give her one last message. She'd worked it out, that he wasn't really dead, but it didn't stop the fact that she saw him jump and land and 'die' in front of her eyes. SHE had been the one of the two of them to suffer when his 'death' hit, she had had to go on.</p><p>He'd had his mission, to disband Moriarty's circle, it kept him going, the knowledge that when he finished he could return to her. But she hadn't known, not fully, if or when he'd pop up in the paper, where he'd go, if he'd survive to the next step. Two years of constant suffering and wonder and pain.</p><p>And then he got shot, and while Mary had aimed for a spot he could survive…if he hadn't fallen the right way, if he hadn't kept shock from settling in, if he hadn't borne the pain…he could have died. And Leena would have been the one to suffer that again.</p><p>His fake death, his near death, had happened to his wife and his closest friend.</p><p>And now…now karma was truly a bitch come back to bite him in the ass.</p><p>He might lose Leena.</p><p>Her death would be something that happened to <em>him</em>.</p><p>His life and hers, they were tied, they were married, and he wasn't ready for the 'till death do us part' bit.</p><p>"Your life is not your own," he repeated, "Keep your hands off it."</p><p>That last part…that was for him.</p><p>If it hadn't been for Liberty, he…he might have kept Faith's gun for himself. Truly the only things helping him cling to life and not put a bullet in his own brain was his daughter and Leena. If he hadn't had Liberty and Leena died…</p><p>He dug his nails into the metal of the railing, needing the pain to jolt him out of his spiraling thoughts.</p><p>Leena <em>was</em> alive.</p><p><em>His daughter</em> was depending on him.</p><p>He <em>couldn't</em> break now.</p><p>"You're not what I expected," Faith remarked behind him, "You're…"</p><p>"What?" he asked, feeling himself shaking, feeling himself starting to break no matter how much he tried to hold it in. He had cried, he'd had his cry, he allowed himself just one after Liberty had been put to bed that fist night. He had to be strong, for Liberty, "What am I?"</p><p>"Nicer," Faith finished.</p><p>He nearly let out a broken laugh at that, Leena had been the only person who ever thought he was nice. Of course, he was nice<em> to her</em>, there was just…she'd smiled at him. When they first met, she'd smiled and seemed so genuinely pleased to meet him, so touched he'd tried to use her language, and she kept spending time around him even when his deductions accidently insulted her.</p><p>He blamed it on her broken English, she probably hadn't understood what he was saying and how it came across. Ok, his terrible French probably hadn't helped any.</p><p>But she stayed with him, she'd gotten under his skin, and he'd realized she pulled farther away when he wasn't nice to her and why would he <em>ever</em> want her farther away?</p><p>She didn't treat him like he was stupid like Mycroft or a freak like the school children, she was NICE to him. It was only fair he be nice in return.</p><p>And then it grew to just <em>wanting</em> to be nice to her, to be kind, to show her she was different to him, she was someone he actually hurt to hurt her.</p><p>"Than..." he began to ask, when his phone pinged and he pulled it out of his pocket with such a desperation he nearly dropped it into the river, "Hello?!" he nearly shouted into the other end.</p><p>"Sherlock," Mary's voice was tense, straining to hide a tremor, "It's Leena..."</p><p>He paid no mind to Faith at all, turning and racing down the road, leaving her alone.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Pregnant women were more likely to throw a clot, he'd learned, 5 times more likely to experience a clot than women who weren't.</p><p>Especially if they were stationary too long, like lying in a hospital bed.</p><p>Even more so when a gunshot wound could cause clots to form too.</p><p>Leena had thrown a clot.</p><p>She'd nearly died and now...now they truly <em>didn't know</em> if she'd wake up. They had her on blood thinners to prevent anything else from happening. They'd had her on them before, but not enough apparently.</p><p>He'd wandered back to 221B in the same dead daze he had the first time, he should call a cab, but he felt like if he sat down now, he'd collapse completely and he couldn't risk that. His mind was desperately searching for anything to distract him from the fear threatening to cripple him. He couldn't lose it now, not when Liberty still needed him, he needed something to focus on so he wouldn't break down at the sight of his daughter with her eyes like her mother.</p><p>His thoughts turned to Faith Smith, to her father, the man who wanted to kill...someone.</p><p>Now that he'd decided to take the case, he could stop deducing Faith and start working on who her father had planned to kill all those years ago.</p><p>'<em>Her life turned on a word, Sherwood,</em>' Leena's voice tried to help him along, already profiling the criminal while he dragged his feet, '<em>What says it's a name? What if it's just a word?</em>'</p><p>He stopped suddenly at the thought, before shaking his head, "It <em>has</em> to be a name…"</p><p>'<em>It could be anyone then.</em>'</p><p>And that was when his heart stopped dead.</p><p><em>Anyone</em>.</p><p>"Of course!" Sherlock breathed, "He doesn't want to kill <em>one</em> person, he wants to kill any<em>one</em>. He's a serial killer!"</p><p>His mind short circuited at that...there was <em>a serial killer</em> in London, in London where he and his family lived, in London where his wife was laid up in a hospital, vulnerable, and then looped back to the only thing he could safely risk thinking about: <em>he</em> had to stop him.</p><p>He had to stop Culverton Smith…he had to stop him now!</p><p>"Oi, Sherlock!" a voice snapped, and Sherlock blinked, only to find himself standing in the middle of 221B, Wiggins in front of him.</p><p>He frowned at the man, "What…" he began, before looking around, he truly<em> was</em> standing in the middle of the flat, but <em>how</em>? He'd just been standing on a random street...</p><p>And then he noticed, his heart was racing, his skin was tingling, his ears were ringing, there were white spots on the edge of his vision, his lungs hurt, his legs ached, and he was panting.</p><p>He'd run there.</p><p>He'd run back to the flat from the hospital without even realizing it.</p><p>Microsleep, it had to be, those funny little points of time where your mind fell asleep before your body could recognize it and the body kept going. He had vague memories of shoving people aside, racing around corners, stumbling into things, but he'd gotten there. He'd known he'd had to get back to the flat as fast as he could and his body had done so before his mind had caught up to it.</p><p>Damn, he'd gone too long without another fix if he was experiencing them again.</p><p>"You've 'ad too much, mate," Wiggins spoke to him, "You gotta <em>sleep</em>."</p><p>"What?" Sherlock scoffed, "No!" he snapped, pushing past Wiggins and to the kitchen, putting the coffee on, and then stormed back to the flat, moving to the laptop and pulling out his phone as he got to work looking up every scrap of information he could find about Culverton Smith.</p><p>Wiggins watched on, alarmed, "Sherlock…mate, you <em>need</em> to get some sleep. I'm being serious…"</p><p>"Sleep," he nearly sneered at the world, "I can't! I can't sleep. Don't you see?" he glare at Wiggins, "They're always poor and lonely, and strange. But those are only the ones we catch."</p><p>"Who do we catch?"</p><p>"Serial killers," Sherlock replied, "What if you were rich and powerful and necessary? What if you had the compulsion to kill, and money? What then?"</p><p>Then they could get away with it, then they could go after anyone!</p><p>He flinched when the alarm on his phone went off again, reminding him that Liberty would be waking soon…</p><p>His stomach dropped and he felt bile rising in him.</p><p>Anyone.</p><p>Liberty.</p><p>Leena.</p><p>He grit his teeth, his hands clenching into fists, like hell he would <em>ever</em> allow that man to harm his family, he would not allow him to harm anyone else's family either.</p><p>Come hell or high water, he would stop Culverton Smith!</p><p>~8~</p><p>It took all of three weeks before even Wiggins had to make a break for it, truly convinced Sherlock was off his rocker and genuinely fearing for his own life the man was in such a state.</p><p>Mrs. Hudson, while not a genius detective, did not need to be one to know something had changed dramatically for Sherlock.</p><p>Things had gotten worse.</p><p>Sherlock spent every spare second Liberty wasn't awake on his phone or his computer, carving out news clippings and maps and magazine articles, hanging them everywhere, creating such a clutter. There were pages of notes strewn about and a mess everywhere save Liberty's pen and nursery, those were pristine. Sometimes she felt like there were two different men living in the flat. When Liberty was awake and active, Sherlock spared no scrap of his attention on her, feeding her, cleaning her, burping her, comforting her, soothing her, taking her to visit Leena. He spent his days in the hospital with his wife, always with that infernal laptop and each day he came back, more manic than the day before.</p><p>He'd gotten so…protective, as well, over his daughter, over Leena.</p><p>Last time Mrs. Hudson had tried to visit her hospital room she'd been stopped by MI6 officers Sherlock had gotten Mycroft to lend him to guard her room. Their flat was on constant surveillance. And Liberty, the blessed dear, wasn't allowed out of Sherlock's sight unless she was sleeping. She'd hardly gotten any chance to even hold the girl in the last three weeks. Sherlock had become so paranoid about her safety, as though any person who came near the flat was a danger to her or a threat that had to be dealt with that he'd stopped taking clients, he'd been obsessing over some commercial man, and it was…it was <em>scaring her</em>, it was truly scaring her how out of sorts he was.</p><p>She had thought he'd been bad before, the poor man just wasting away, barely eating or sleeping out of fear for his wife. But this? There was most stress in him, more he was doing. He barely rested, hardly stopped, and it would be one thing if it was numerous cases for the Yard or something different. But he really was obsessing over a single man to the point she was genuinely fearing for his sanity. A person could only go on little sleep or food for so long before something terrible happened, and adding to it the disgusting lab she knew was in his kitchen and what he must be doing to himself to keep himself going...something frightening in her told her Liberty was at risk of becoming an orphan if Sherlock kept going this path.</p><p>She crept up the stairs quietly, hearing 'Le nozze di Figaro' blaring over the record player in 221B, though there was a loud noise, a shouting, and roaring, someone yelling, coming above the sound. She winced when a crashing noise, like glass thrown against the wall sounded and Wiggins came running down the steps.</p><p>"I'm out of 'ere!" Wiggins declared, pointing a waring finger at her, "'e's lost it!"</p><p>"Where is it?!" she could hear Sherlock angrily ranting in the flat. She took a breath and crept up the stairs, needing to check on him and Liberty and…well…to be honest it wasn't the worst she'd expected to see when she peeked past the door.</p><p>Sherlock charged into the sitting room from the kitchen, a pistol in his hand, having heard the door below slam shut and ready to defend his daughter to the death. His dressing gown was hanging off him, barely covering his black shirt and pants, an outfit she was sure she'd seen him wear for the last 2 days straight, though he hardly cared. Liberty was clutched in his one arm, protectively held against his chest, as he wielded the pistol in the other.</p><p>"'Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!'" he cried out, spinning in a circle in the middle of the room though he kept his gaze on his daughter, ensuring she was alright.</p><p>She was smiling at him, giggling.</p><p>She loved Shakespeare, it seemed, just like her mother.</p><p>Oh he knew she was too young to understand a word of it, but when he recited it, she stopped crying. And it would be something Leena would have loved to do with their daughter, and so <em>he</em> would. He'd recite every sonnet, every monologue, every line from every play if he had to to keep Leena with them, to keep their daughter happy.</p><p>The room was filled with pictures and photos of Culverton Smith, stuck up on the walls, scattered over desks, string connecting various pieces of information with missing persons cases.</p><p>"'Or close the wall up," he continued to recite to Liberty, jumping onto the sofa with a bounce that had her flailing her arms in glee, "With our English dead!" he hopped off the sofa and strode around the room, "Let the teeth and stretch the nostril wide!" and kicked a door shut, making a great show of fighting off the enemy, wanting his daughter to know he COULD, "Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit…" he ripped a picture down that was stuck up on the mirror, not wanting to see that but he and his daughter, "To his full height! On, on, you noblest English, whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof! And you, good yeoman, whose limbs were made in England, show us here the mettle of your pasture! Which I doubt not, for there is none of you so mean and base that hath not noble luster in your eyes!" he spun in a circle, "I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, straining upon the start!" he turned and aimed the pistol, firing it at a picture of Smith that was hanging by the sofa wall, before doing the same to four more photos all around the flat, "The game's afoot!"</p><p>He grinned at Liberty, using the hand holding her to tickle her sides.</p><p>'<em>You missed a few key lines, Locksley,</em>' Leena's voice commented, and he could almost picture her sitting in his armchair, '<em>Shame on you.</em>'</p><p>"Well then you'll have to wake up and do better than me," Sherlock spoke at the chair, mumbling more to himself than truly saying it aloud.</p><p>But it was enough for Mrs. Hudson to speak behind him, until he spun around, "Oh, hello," he greeted, moving Liberty's hand to wave at her as well, "Hello, Mrs. Hudson!" he pitched his voice to pretend Liberty was speaking too, before sniffing loudly, "Can I have a cup of coffee? Two tablespoons of espresso, please."</p><p>He moved to the middle of the room, setting Liberty down into her small carry-cot as she made some raspberry sounds, which made him make one in return to her, tickling her stomach once more.</p><p>"These pictures…" Mrs. Hudson began and he glanced back to see she was standing there, staring, not making coffee.</p><p>Honestly, he was a single father at the moment and the woman couldn't help him by making some damned coffee? What use was she?</p><p>"Coffee!" he called out.</p><p>'<em>Be nice, Sherwood,</em>' Leena's voice chastised.</p><p>He huffed, turning to look at his armchair over his shoulder, "I would if she listened!"</p><p>Mrs. Hudson flinched both at the shout and at the bolt of fear that shot through her at hearing him talking to someone who wasn't there, but she hurried to the kitchen to do as she was told, not sure what else to do but hoping she might be able to gleam what sort of drugs he'd taken so she could warn John or Mary that she needed help.</p><p>Sherlock didn't seem to notice as he pressed Liberty's pacifier into her mouth, the girl always slept well for her nap after reciting some Shakespeare to her…</p><p>He turned on his heel and moved into the kitchen, to the clipboard with his findings, not seeing Mrs. Hudson quickly step away from where she'd been trying to glance at it.</p><p>"They're that man on the telly, aren't they?" Mrs. Hudson finished.</p><p>"What?" he looked to the side.</p><p>'<em>The pictures, Sherwood,</em>' the Leena he imagined spoke, now leaning against the counter beside Mrs. Hudson.</p><p>"Oh, yes, right," he nodded at her before turning to a very pale Mrs. Hudson, "The pictures?"</p><p>"They're everywhere," Mrs. Hudson said weakly, tears in her eyes to see him having fallen so far, to break so deeply.</p><p>"Oh, these pictures!" he gestured at the plastic of the kitchen hanging, "Oh, you can see them too," he murmured, "That's good."</p><p>He'd thought he'd developed a new tactic in his mind palace to project images he was thinking of onto walls and doors so he could look at them all at once. Good to know it was still paper. He couldn't remember how he'd gotten so much ink on his hands before, thought maybe Liberty's blankets had developed a fault and were leaking dye. But it was the printer, obviously. Mystery solved.</p><p>He winced, rubbing at the side of his head where the pounding headache he'd been fighting off was killing him. He knew it was coming, but he'd timed it. A nice up of coffee right now, more sugar and espresso mixed in, would stem off both the caffeine withdrawal pains and help set his mind going again. He adored his daughter, he did, but right now he needed to focus on stopping Smith and he could only do that when she was sleeping. With that in mind, his gaze turned frantically to the pictures and clippings and string he could see through the plastic draping.</p><p>It wasn't as nice as Leena would have had it.</p><p>But, then again, with Leena there and profiling Smith, he wouldn't have needed to do so much work.</p><p>Still, she wasn't there, and he had to do it. As soon as Smith was dealt with she'd wake up after all. Ooh, she was clever like that, teasing him,<em> testing</em> him. He promised her London would be safe when she woke up, and then a serial Killer popped up and that wasn't safe. No, no it wasn't safe. So he had to solve it and then Leena would wake up because it was safe.</p><p>Simple.</p><p>"Cup of coffee!" he spun around. His mind was slowing, he could feel it, his hands were shaking and he had to be steel, he had to be steady, anyone could come through that door for his daughter and he had to be ready to stop them, "Oh, for goodness' sakes!" he turned again, glaring at Mrs. Hudson when he saw her holding the coffee in the cup but it was trembling in her hands, "What's the matter with you?" he demanded, "Are you having an earthquake?!"</p><p>He moved to reach for the cup, but the sudden movement seemed to startle Mrs. Hudson, who dropped it.</p><p>His eyes widened, knowing he didn't have enough in the pot to have a second cup ready and he needed that NOW! So he dropped the gun on the table and reached for the cup, breathing a sigh of relief when he managed to save it with only a mouthful's worth spilling to the floor. He stood…and came face-to-face with Mrs. Hudson, holding his pistol right at him.</p><p>"Right, then, mister," Mrs. Hudson huffed, not trembling at all, "Now I need your handcuffs. I happen to know you and Jackie keep a spare set in the salad drawer," she shrugged, thinking about it, she would never touch their 'wedding cuffs' but they did have others lying about and that was the nearest one, "I've borrowed them before," he gave her a look, "Oh, get over yourself. You're not my first smackhead, Sherlock Holmes."</p><p>He rolled his eyes, unperturbed, and took his large mouthful of coffee, swallowing it, and turning to head back into the sitting room for his daughter…</p><p>Only for Mrs. Hudson to slam the gun across the back of his head, knocking him out.</p><p>~8~</p><p>To say John Watson was shocked when a very flashy, red car sped up to the door of his new therapist's home, with police chasing after it, a bin paying the price, and 'Ode to Joy' blaring out the speakers…would probably not be as much of an understatement as one would think.</p><p>To say he was shocked when it was <em>Mrs. Hudson</em> and not Sherlock Holmes stepping out of the car…now THAT would be an understatement.</p><p>He'd fully expected it to be Sherlock in some desperate bid to get his attention and get him to talk to him as Mary kept insisting he do. It had taken a month but she had worn him down enough where he had gone and booked a therapist to speak to, needing an outside perspective on whether he'd gone too far and should speak to his 'friend' or if he was right to cut all ties with him. It was too close to both him and Mary, he needed a non-biased third party to look at things objectively.</p><p>He knew he'd reacted poorly to the entire situation. He knew he should have done it differently but…there were too many parallels between what happened to Leena and what could have been Mary. Leena was Sherlock's wife, as Mary was his. Leena had just had a baby, as had Mary and him. Leena would go off on mad cases with Sherlock, just like he and Mary would.</p><p>Only this time, <em>Mary</em> had been the target.</p><p>This time it would have been Mary.</p><p>Last time, with Magnussen, Sherlock and Leena had taken pains to keep Mary away from the man when they confronted him, this time she'd been right there.</p><p>She'd told him it wasn't personal, Vivian and her actions, she and her team were just nameless faceless assassins she used and discarded. She hadn't set AJ on her, she'd honestly had nothing to do with that whole mess. And she'd told him how Sherlock had drawn the woman's attention and anger at himself, to keep Mary from being a target. She'd told him how Leena had refused to let her into the aquarium unless she took the bulletproof vest that was Sherlock's and wore it for extra measure.</p><p>All of it meant <em>nothing</em> to him because he walked into that room to see someone's wife on the ground, bleeding out of a bullet wound, and it so easily could have been Mary.</p><p>When he or Sherlock got shot or harmed, that was life, they were men and yes he knew it was a sexist way to look at it, but…he was meant to protect Mary and Leena too. When they were hurt, they were <em>men</em>. He didn't look at Sherlock and see <em>his wife</em> staring back at him, but when he saw Leena there…his mind had gone to Mary.</p><p>A blonde woman was on the ground and bleeding out from a wound and <em>it could have been Mary</em>.</p><p>It was like, for the first time, he realized how <em>truly dangerous</em> this whole thing was, how close they <em>kept</em> getting to it because of Sherlock and his enemies and cases.</p><p>He just…he'd wanted to get his wife away from there, keep her and Hamish safe.</p><p>Mary had been <em>furious</em> with him, they'd had the worst row they'd ever had and he'd been too angry then to hear her arguments, too afraid of how close he'd come to losing her. And the more she kept bringing it up in the days and weeks that followed, the more he wanted to dig his heels in that he'd made the right call.</p><p>When Mary stopped talking to <em>him</em> unless it had to do with Hamish…when he finally had silence…that was when her word began to sink in and he'd begun to question himself.</p><p><em>Sherlock's wife</em> had just been shot. <em>Leena</em> had just been shot,<em> their friend</em>. Sherlock just had a baby girl and he was alone with her, with no support because Mycroft was not the godfather and even being the uncle Sherlock's relationship with the man was strained enough. THEY were the godparents, they had to be there for Liberty. They had to be there for Sherlock for god's sake, his wife might die!</p><p>Working at the hospital, Mary kept tabs on Leena, he did too. He didn't visit during hours, because Sherlock was always there. Mary would though, she'd check on him. He would…he'd go, read her chart at the end of every shift, check her equipment and the wires, make sure she was ok but not when Sherlock was there.</p><p>He knew it was bad, Leena's condition. She'd thrown a clot and that was horrifically dangerous. She'd shown signs of improvement before it happened, very minute signs that she might wake up, and then it all went to hell and she was in even more danger than before. They managed to save her, they were taking measures to prevent it happening again. But he knew she wasn't out of the woods. The trauma from it all? The fact that she hadn't woken up in over a month? It was BAD.</p><p>And he knew Sherlock had to be falling apart and spiraling and doing the worst things he could to try and cope. He knew, as a doctor, as a friend, as a decent human being, he <em>should</em> be there for the man, for his goddaughter at the very least…</p><p>Part of him was humiliated and ashamed of what he'd done, so <em>guilty</em> for how he'd reacted that he just couldn't face Sherlock right now, when the man truly needed them the most.</p><p>A larger part though, wondered if it was for the best, if this was the clean break they needed to keep Sherlock out of their lives for good, if they'd be safe. The friendship he had with Sherlock, how far they would go for each other...was that normal? Was there something psychologically wrong with it?</p><p>Sherlock had shot a man in the head to protect Mary and him.</p><p>Was that normal? Was that what normal people did? He had shot a man in defense of Sherlock, yes, but the man was a murderer trying to kill him, and he'd shot him non-lethally whereas Sherlock…</p><p>He just…he needed <em>someone</em> to tell him if this was right or wrong, because he couldn't trust Mary about this and he couldn't trust himself.</p><p>So he'd booked a therapist to talk to, had only gotten through an hour of describing Sherlock and Leena and a summary of what happened that caused all this, when the car screeching outside had distracted him and he'd rushed for the door.</p><p>"Well, now, won't you introduce me?" his therapist asked, a tease in her voice when the driver finally got out of the car.</p><p>Mrs. Hudson.</p><p>Of all the people in the world, he had not expected that. Second to Sherlock would be Mary, finally having enough and there to drag him away to see Sherlock for himself…another reason he'd cut contact. If he didn't <em>see</em> the man, if he didn't see the sorry state he'd imagined the man fell into, he wouldn't feel as bad. He could keep pretending (badly) that Sherlock was coping fine and not being self-destructive.</p><p>"Mrs. Hudson?" John gaped at her as she walked around the car to the other side.</p><p>"Right, you there," an officer hurried out of his car towards her, "Stop right where you are."</p><p>"Just a moment," she called out, leaning into the car and stepping back…with Liberty in a carry-cot.</p><p>"Mrs. Hudson…" John tensed, his heart stopping cold when he saw the baby, his mind racing with the implication of <em>why</em> Mrs. Hudson had absconded with the two month old infant, what it could mean.</p><p>"Do you have any idea what speed you were going at?" the officer demanded.</p><p>"Well, of course not," Mrs. Hudson huffed, "I was on the phone," she held up her other hand to show them her mobile, before handing it to the officer, "It's for you, by the way."</p><p>"For me?" the officer frowned but took the phone nonetheless.</p><p>"It's the government."</p><p>"What's going on?" John demanded as Mrs. Hudson made her way over to him, "What's wrong?" he pointed at the helicopter circling above, "What's happened?"</p><p>Mrs. Hudson broke down in tears, "It's Sherlock! You've no idea what I've been through!"</p><p>John looked down when Liberty began to cry as well, hurrying to take the baby from the cot and cradle her, rocking back and forth as he tried to speak to Mrs. Hudson, his heart racing as he feared the worst, that something happened to the man and now Liberty was alone in the world and he should have been there and... "Did you call the police?"</p><p>She sniffled, angry, "Of course I didn't call the police. I'm not a civilian!"</p><p>"Please," his therapist called, gesturing them to the house, "Come, come, she is upset."</p><p>Whether she meant Mrs. Hudson or Liberty, John could only guess, but he followed them both into the house as Mrs. Hudson recounted Sherlock's current obsession with a Culverton Smith.</p><p>The therapist frowned, moving over to her laptop and opening it to check who the man even was, for if this Sherlock man had grown so obsessed there must be a reason, "This, I think, is relevant from this morning," she turned the computer to show John.</p><p>He let out a breath that just barely refrained from containing a strong curse word when he saw the top article.</p><p>"Oh my," the therapist blinked, "It seems he's publicly accused Mr. Smith of being a serial killer."</p><p>"Christ!" he huffed, "Sherlock on Twitter. He really has lost it."</p><p>"Don't you dare make jokes!" Mrs. Hudson pointed a finger at him, recalling how the man really might have lost his senses, speaking to thin air and people who weren't there, "Don't you dare. I was <em>terrified</em>! I had to get Liberty out of there!"</p><p>John tensed at that, looking down at the baby in his arms, for Mrs. Hudson to fear for the baby…something cold dropped into his stomach imaging how bad Sherlock truly had to be for that to happen. He wasn't dead, clearly, but something else had to have happened.</p><p>"You need to see him, John," Mrs. Hudson pressed, "You need to help him!"</p><p>"Nope," John shook his head, honestly not sure which emotion he was feeling right now more than dread.</p><p>"He needs you!"</p><p>"He needs Leena, not me."</p><p>"She might be dead, John!" Mrs. Hudson snapped, tears spilling from her eyes, "She might be dying, and he needs <em>help</em>!" she sniffled, "Please John," she begged, "You're the only one who can help."</p><p>"Mycroft, Molly, Mary…" he tried to offer.</p><p>"They're not doctors," Mrs. Hudson insisted, "Would you just <em>see</em> him? Please, John. Or just take a look at him as a doctor? I know you'd change your mind if you did," she eyed him as he hesitated, and glanced down at Liberty, "That little girl might lose her mother any day now," she looked up at John, "YOU might still be able to save her father."</p><p>If that didn't just hit him right in the gut as he looked down at the baby in his arms. No matter what happened between him and Sherlock…Liberty didn't deserve to have someone refusing to help her father when he needed it. She needed her parents, and Mrs. Hudson was right, until Leena recovered…she only had Sherlock.</p><p>He took a breath, reminded that he WAS a doctor, when one needed to save a life, call John Watson, and it seemed...Sherlock might just need that saving, "Yeah, look, ok, maybe, if I get a chance."</p><p>"D'you promise?" Mrs. Hudson perked up.</p><p>"I'll try, if I'm in the area."</p><p>"Promise me?"</p><p>"I promise."</p><p>"Thank you!" she reached out and took his hand in what he thought was a gesture…only she didn't let go and turned to lead him back out of the house, to her car…to the boot…which opened to reveal Sherlock stuffed in there, his hands cuffed together.</p><p>"Well?" she turned to smile at John, "On you go. Examine him!"</p><p>John could only gape, not at Sherlock being stuffed in the boot…but at how truly <em>terrible</em> the man looked. From the bags under his eyes, the greasy hair, the stubble on his chin, the clothing he knew fit the man better than that which told him too much about his eating habits (or lack thereof), the dazed look in his eyes…and the fact that Mrs. Hudson had even been able to get the jump on him at all…</p><p>This…this really was<em> not</em> good.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Sherlock absently rubbed his wrists, finally freed of the handcuffs, and shot Mrs. Hudson a glare, "The woman's out of control," he muttered, "I asked for a cup of coffee!" he turned to John and stepped towards him, reaching out for his daughter, only for John to take a step back, "Oh, I'm sorry," he remarked sarcastically, "Are you being godfather now? Bit late," before his eyes hardened, "Give. Me. <em>My. Daughter.</em>"</p><p>John glanced over at Mrs. Hudson who gave him a slight nod and, against his better judgement, handed Liberty back over.</p><p>Honestly, he was a little surprised how gentle and careful Sherlock was with the girl considering his clearly strung out state. The only thing allowing him to do it, was that he was there if Sherlock hurt the girl or lost focus. He would be ready to jump in and help…</p><p>Sherlock, though, seemed to know his own limits for once and strode past John, into the therapist's house, and plopped down on the nearest chair for more support, his attention on Liberty.</p><p>John sighed, turning to Mrs. Hudson as they entered the house too, "How did you get him in the boot?"</p><p>"The boys from the café," she smiled.</p><p>"I'm pretty sure they dropped me," Sherlock snapped at her, "Twice!"</p><p>Did those two have no respect for him? No care? He knew he wasn't the kindest person, but he was a father, they could have at least been careful with him for Liberty's sake!</p><p>"And d'you know why they dropped you, dear?" Mrs. Hudson wouldn't let him get away with it, "Because they know you."</p><p>Sherlock rolled his eyes and finally looked away from Liberty, having down a quick scan of the girl to make sure she was alright. At least Mrs. Hudson had taken care with her. He glanced around, catching sight of John's therapist across the room, her back to him, on the phone, "Who's this one?" he looked to John for an answer, "Is this a new person? I'm against new people."</p><p>"She's my therapist," John huffed.</p><p>"Awesome!" Sherlock muttered, glancing at the woman, "D'you do block bookings?"</p><p>The woman ignored him though, waiting till John had finished speaking to Mrs. Hudson to approach with his mobile, "I'm so sorry. I answered your phone. You were busy. I think you'll want to take it."</p><p>Sherlock scoffed at being ignored and looked back down at Liberty as she fussed, John stepping to the side to speak to the person on the phone, by his guess Culverton Smith had made contact. He smiled gently at Liberty, ignoring the headache he could feel encroaching. It hadn't been enough coffee and…</p><p>He blinked when a cup of it was set on the small table next to the chair, looking up at the therapist.</p><p>"You looked like you could use a pick-me-up," she shrugged, her German accent quite heavy.</p><p>"Yes, thanks," he reached out and gulped it down in one go, wincing at the burn, much to the concern of the woman standing before him. He didn't care though, setting the cup aside and looking down at Liberty again as she began to move in the way that only meant she was unhappy, "Hey now," he murmured to her, lifting her to rest against his shoulder, knowing just the thing, "'Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind," he began to recite to her quietly, rubbing her back, his voice a soft timbre in her ears, "And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind. Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste; wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste. And therefore is Love said to be a child, Because in choice he is so oft beguiled…'"</p><p>"You're very good with her," the therapist remarked as Liberty calmed.</p><p>"I have to be," he stated, too honest for his liking. He really needed more coffee than this, he was slowing down faster, building up too much tolerance for caffeine after a month living off it. He smiled when Liberty's flailing arms hit him in the mouth and he pulled away, smiling at her, "How is my little love?" he asked the girl, using his other hand to kiss her hand, before tucking her down into the crook of his elbow again, "What's that look for?" he asked, his eyes shooting up to the therapist, who was watching him in silent contemplation.</p><p>"Sorry?"</p><p>"You're staring."</p><p>"She's a beautiful girl."</p><p>"You should see her mother," he muttered.</p><p>"Is she improving?" the woman asked, HOW she knew quite clear, but without outright revealing or breaking her patient's confidentiality.</p><p>Sherlock merely shot her a narrow eyed look, "That is none of your concern."</p><p>The woman held her hands up and moved to gather his cup, heading to the kitchen to clean it.</p><p>Sherlock looked over, hearing the bell ring, only half paying attention to John's conversation, but, by his estimate of time, the car Culverton should have been sending by now would arrive…just now, as he'd instructed the man to do two weeks ago. He glanced up when John, who had gone to the front door when it knocked, strode back across the hall to the kitchen where Mrs. Hudson was speaking with the therapist.</p><p>"How did you know where to find me?" he could hear John demand.</p><p>"Oh, Sherlock told me," the woman answered, "He's not so difficult when you've got a gun on him."</p><p>'<em>You're not so difficult ever,</em>' Leena's voice argued in his head.</p><p>"Only with you," Sherlock murmured to himself, in answer of her.</p><p>Leena laughed, '<em>That's only because I hold you hostage with a kiss and not a weapon.</em>'</p><p>"Your kiss <em>is</em> a weapon," he countered, but cut himself off from saying more to the voice in his head when John stalked into the room.</p><p>"How did you know?" John demanded of him, though he could only look on blankly, not sure what he meant, "How? On Monday I decided to get a new therapist. Tuesday afternoon, I chose her," he pointed to the woman who had returned to her chair, "Wednesday morning I booked today's session. Now, today is Friday. So two weeks ago, <em>two weeks</em> before you were abducted at gunpoint and brought here against your will!" he was getting angry now, "Over a week before I even thought of coming here, you knew exactly where you'd need to be picked up for lunch?" John let out a breath through his nose, "Did Mary tell you?"</p><p>"How could she tell me something two weeks ago you only decided to do this week?" Sherlock rolled his eyes, before huffing, "I correctly anticipate the responses of people I know well to scenarios I devised," he eyed John, "Can't everyone do that?"</p><p>"How?" Mrs. Hudson gaped at him, in the doorway of the kitchen, actually looking surprised by that.</p><p>"My wife is a profiler," he told them, "She can guess what you'll do before you do it. I've learned a few tricks over the years," before he frowned and pointed an accusing finger at Mrs. Hudson, "Except the boot. The boot was mean."</p><p>'<em>I warned you she'd go for the boot,</em>' Leena's voice teased in his head, '<em>You didn't believe me.</em>'</p><p>"Never mind how," John waved it off, "He's dying to tell us that. I want to know why."</p><p>"Because of him," Sherlock pointed at the still open laptop displaying Culverton's face, glaring at it, "Whatever you think of me John, whatever danger you think I pose, you know that I am still functioning here," he pointed to his head, "So when I tell you that that man is THE most dangerous, the most despicable human being that I have <em>ever</em> encountered…when I tell you that this…this monster MUST be ended…please remember where you're standing. Because you're standing <em>exactly</em> where I said you would be two weeks ago," he winced and pressed a hand to his forehead, that was probably the longest he'd talked to anyone besides Leena in weeks, his head was splitting open from having to explain himself to them.</p><p>Leena understood, she always understood.</p><p>"So what has all this got to do with me?" John demanded.</p><p>Sherlock took a breath and opened his eyes, glaring at the photo of the man, "That creature, that rotting thing, is a living breathing coagulation of human evil, and he has to be stopped. I have to drive him out of this world, for Liberty. For Leena," he looked up at John, "When London is safe, she'll wake up. London won't be safe so long as he draws breath."</p><p>John could only stare at Sherlock in pity and…a mounting sense that something was truly <em>wrong</em> with him. For Sherlock had said it so surely, so completely positive that he was right, he truly believed what he said. That getting rid of this Smith fellow would magically cause Leena to awaken. And that was a dangerous thought path to travel down.</p><p>What was it Leena said about the people she profiled? Escalation always came towards the end, when the plan wasn't working, usually, when desperation got too high. Was this Sherlock just before escalation? Was Smith just the first step in the man finally falling over the edge? Who would be next after Smith if Leena didn't wake up? What would Sherlock do? How far would he go?</p><p>The man clearly wasn't in his right mind, it was so clear to him, and to his therapist too given how she was frowning and shifting on her chair.</p><p>Looking at Sherlock now…he understood Mrs. Hudson's concerns.</p><p>He was not in a good place, physically, emotionally, or mentally. He was breaking down without Leena there, with the trauma and the history behind her injury. Liberty truly could lose her father if the man kept up this way…now he needed to know how bad it really was.</p><p>He held out a hand to Sherlock, who blinked, with genuine tears in his eyes, before he stood, moving Liberty to one arm so he could reach out and shake John's hand…but that hadn't been his intention at all. He reached out with his other hand to push Sherlock's sleeve up, examining his forearm…dotted with three small bruises around the telltale pinprick of a needle.</p><p>John's jaw clenched at the sight, feeling another sort of fury blaze within him. It was bad enough Sherlock had clearly turned to drugs, the state of him could mean little else. But it was another to see the evidence of it…and to know he'd broken his promise to Leena to stay clean.</p><p>When Leena woke up she'd be heartbroken…</p><p>He flinched at that thought, IF. IF Leena woke up…</p><p>But even then, Liberty was there, and she needed her father sober.</p><p>He took a breath, putting a lid on his anger, and looked up at Sherlock, "I need to know what state you're in."</p><p>He needed to know what drugs the man had taken, what was he high on, what was he using, what would the withdrawal be like because he and Mary would need to plan to have a second child around while Sherlock detoxed. He would NOT let Liberty be around the man during that, not after what Leena had told him happened the first time.</p><p>Sherlock, though, frowned at John, seeing the simmering rage in his eyes, the coldness in his voice, and truly lost as to why, "Well, you're a doctor. Examine me."</p><p>John shook his head, "No, I need a second opinion. I need the one person who, unlike me, learned to see through your bullshit long ago."</p><p>Sherlock's eyes narrowed, "Leena can't…"</p><p>"The one conscious person," John amended, wincing at his flub. While Leena had known how to handle Sherlock for years now, there was one other person who treated Sherlock with indifference, now more than in the past, but who still cared for him enough as a friend to help him with this if he asked, "I want you to be examined by Molly Hooper."</p><p>"Is that really necessary?" Sherlock scoffed.</p><p>For a moment, he'd genuinely thought that 'examine' meant just look him over, notice his exhaustion, notice his poor hygiene, notice his weight loss, the shaking n his hands from the caffeine, the uptick in his heart from the adrenaline he'd had to inject the last two days since the caffeine wasn't working as well.</p><p>He…he hadn't considered John would think he was using <em>drugs</em> again. He had promised Leena, sworn to her, he would always stay clean, for her. WHY would he resort to the drugs' when she was counting on him to stay sober? Why would he turn to drugs when his daughter was relying on him to be clear headed enough to protect her?</p><p>He had thought, briefly, that he likely looked like he was strung out to other people, sleep deprivation could cause a manic sort of behavior similar to being high. And not eating well or sleeping right or taking care of one's self could, he supposed, reflect a certain similarity to a druggie craving for a hit. He considered that others would come to this conclusion, that he must be using again.</p><p>But he had also thought that, after all this time, after <em>every time</em> they thought so and been proven wrong, he had earned enough trust for them to know or at least hope it was the same here, that they knew he hadn't.</p><p>Clearly, he'd been wrong if even JOHN thought the worst.</p><p>Before John could answer, the doorbell rang, both men looked up and over at the sound, before heading to the door, opening it to see Molly standing there in her lab coat, an ambulance parked at the curb, with Mary leaning against the side of it.</p><p>"Um, hello," Molly began, startled more at the sight of how…terrible Sherlock looked than how angry John appeared to be, "Sorry, um, Mary asked me to come…"</p><p>"What?" John blinked, looking over at Mary as she smirked and waved at him. He rolled his eyes, of course she'd do this. She'd be there, ready to test Sherlock the moment she found out he was on his way there. Mrs. Hudson must have called her to give warning or double check he really WAS where Sherlock claimed he'd be.</p><p>SHE had been the one most concerned Sherlock had turned to drugs, it had been one of her main arguments for him to speak to the man again, to check on him, being a doctor and being around Sherlock so much longer than her, he would know better than her. She knew where he would be today, and if Mrs. Hudson had reached out to her for help, for some sort of intervention as she seemed intent for this to become, <em>she</em> would have known he'd want to check Sherlock out before <em>he</em> even agreed to check Sherlock out.</p><p>"Of course she did," he muttered under his breath.</p><p>"There's no getting out of this, is there?" Sherlock grumbled.</p><p>John just turned and held out his hands for Liberty, "You want my help, you let Molly and Mary examine you."</p><p>Mary, at least, he knew would be very thorough about this, this had been something she'd truly worried about.</p><p>Sherlock huffed, placing a kiss on Liberty's head, before handing her over to John and stepping past Molly to join Mary where she was opening the back of the ambulance for him.</p><p>"Sorry," Mary remarked, helping him up and into the ambulance, noticing how weak and weary he looked and not thinking he'd manage it on his own.</p><p>"This really isn't necessary," Sherlock insisted, dropping down into a side bench within, "I'm not on drugs!"</p><p>"Oh, I know," Mary nodded, speaking so simply and surely that it startled Sherlock for a moment. She glanced out the doors to where John and Molly were talking by the house, and quickly got to work rolling up his sleeves and nabbing her tourniquet to draw blood, "You'd never do that to Jackie."</p><p>Sherlock let out a breath, "If you know that, then why…"</p><p>"Who do you think convinced him you had to be using?" Mary glanced at him, then down to his elbow where she began to insert the needle connected to the vial for tests, she needed the equipment to look used.</p><p>Sherlock frowned, "I don't understand."</p><p>Mary's expression grew soft and concerned, "Oh, Sherlock, how long has it been since you've <em>slept</em>?" she had to ask, knowing that a lack of sleep could severely impact someone's thought process and how fast their mind worked. He should have worked it out by now why she was doing this and what she was doing.</p><p>"What month is it?" he asked.</p><p>She truly didn't think he meant it as a joke, nor did she take it as one. She just finished the process, capped the blood…and put it in her right pocket. Sherlock frowned, watching as Mary took a quick look out the door, making sure Molly and John couldn't see…and pulled a second, already filled, vial from her left pocket to put on the small counter.</p><p>"Mary?"</p><p>She turned to him again, "I don't know how Jackie did it," she remarked instead of truly answering, "Blood is far easier to get a hold of than urine."</p><p>Sherlock's eyes widened, finally piecing together what was happening, how MARY of all people had anticipated this happening and what and why she was doing it.</p><p>She hadn't anticipated anything, she'd CAUSED it to happen.</p><p>SHE had been the one telling John he was back on the drugs, building up the thought so it was a reality and not a mere fear. She had made it so the man would see the pinpricks on his arm and think any number of injectable drugs instead of adrenaline, adrenaline which <em>Mary</em> had supplied him when he asked the last time she'd stopped by Leena's room. She made it so John would take one look at him and see strung out druggie and not exhausted single father wearing himself thin on lack of sleep and minimal food. She made it so John would see his ramblings and ravings about Smith to be a man high as a kite and not a genuine terror for the safety of his wife and daughter.</p><p>She put the idea in John's head, and because it was there, that's what he saw, what he believed, and not what was real.</p><p>And now, if he had to guess, which he didn't for he was almost certain, the vial of blood she'd snuck in likely would show someone with various drugs in their system.</p><p>She <em>wanted</em> John to <em>keep</em> thinking that he was on drugs.</p><p>Mary unwound the tourniquet, putting a bandage over where the needle was removed, speaking quietly, as she could see John and Molly approaching from the corner of her eye, "He's angry and scared," she told Sherlock, "But part of him regrets, I know it, part of him wants to be there for you, Sherlock. He just doesn't know how after the mess he made."</p><p>Sherlock nodded, "So give him a reason to help…"</p><p>Mary nodded, giving him a wink, before she pulled back right as the two reached the ambulance to see her finishing up the bloodwork.</p><p>Molly climbed in and they both got to work checking Sherlock over as John watched on, supervising, though Sherlock could see now, there was a concern in his eyes.</p><p>"If Mary didn't tell you…" John began, needing something to distract him from the grimace on Molly's face and the pity in Mary's eyes, "How did you know about the therapist?"</p><p>"Because you wouldn't trust your decisions," Sherlock stated, "Anything made in anger, you question. It's in your nature, according to Leena. And, Mary would be at your ear constantly, like she was trying to get you to forgive me about faking my death, so you couldn't trust her. Leena was…" he cut himself off, looking away a moment, before continuing, his voice more flat and monotone then before, distanced, "You'd need an outside opinion, but you also wouldn't want to give in right away, you were too angry and you wanted to be justified in your anger. Statistically that lasts about 2 to 4 weeks, according to Leena, but you've always been stubborn so I felt certain it would be nearer to 4 before you gave in and sought help. You work during the week, which is less time for Hamish, so you would never book an appointment on the weekend and eat up more time away from him. So you needed to see someone during working hours. And, because you would already be angry about not being able to do more during…" he cut himself off again, "You wouldn't want anyone at the surgery knowing you're in therapy, you want to seem capable, so that restricts you to lunchtime sessions with someone reasonably close. A search of the area brings up four men and one woman, and I think you'd rather had enough of me," Sherlock tried to smirk, but grimaced when Molly pushed too hard on one of his bruises trying to get his blood pressure down, "Having things explained to you by a man, so a woman. All that was needed was to find the first available lunchtime appointment with a female therapist within cycling distance of your surgery."</p><p>John just shook his head, thankful when Mrs. Hudson approached with the carry-cot, Liberty was already starting to fall asleep in his arms.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Sherlock spent the majority of the ride to the Culverton Smith's location in silence, letting Mary and Molly poke and prod him to John's standards. He could tell Molly now also thought he'd been using again by the hard lines of her face. But the ride there, with Liberty returning to 221B with Mrs. Hudson and John in the car Smith had sent, had given him time to prepare for the next act he'd have to put on and contemplate how to do it. He hadn't exactly planned to fall into the role of relapsed druggie. In all honesty, he'd gone to John's therapist in a last ditch effort to prove to the man that he COULD keep the people he cared about safe, that his vow and his word were good, meant something. He'd thought he could convince John to join him in taking down Smith, so when Leena woke up, he could prove to John that he could keep them safe.</p><p>He hadn't expected Mrs. Hudson to beat him to it and drive him to John herself. He hadn't expected Mary to show up after Mrs. Hudson called her with a portable drug testing lab. And he hadn't expected John to take one look at him and assume he was on drugs, though he blamed that on Mary.</p><p>He understood her logic there. Give John something to concern himself about, something to worry over him for. Let him think or start to fear he'd gone back to drugs and John might check in on him and give them time to talk. Now that Smith was involved, Mary wanted John to REALLY believe he was on drugs. Because, knowing John, the man wouldn't leave his side while he was 'tripping' on them, the doctor in him wouldn't allow it. Molly being there would mean that the results HAD to come back positive, or she'd know he wasn't using, and she'd tell John, and Mary's whole plan would be for nothing.</p><p>He was tired though. He was so tired of everyone assuming it was drugs and that he'd just fall back into them.</p><p>Well, at least Leena had gotten through to Mary and SHE didn't think it would happen...even if she was helping to ensure the others did. He wanted it to stop, he wanted their faith, he just…he wanted Leena to wake up. Everything was easier, everything was better, when Leena was there.</p><p>Mary was ensuring his tests came out positive, he wouldn't be able to deny anything and have someone believe him till Mary spilled the truth, which wouldn't happen if John and him didn't work out their friendship.</p><p>He looed up when the ambulance came to a halt, parking, Molly reading through the results of the tests she'd run on his blood with such an angry and heartbroken expression on her face that he almost, <em>almost</em> felt back about this plan, though he was grateful it couldn't be blamed on HIM this time. Mary had been very careful that she would run all the tests that would require a positive drug ID and Molly had done the general look over. He supposed his current bedraggled state only added to Molly's belief he was on drugs.</p><p>"Well?" John's voice spoke a few minutes later when he made his way over to the ambulance, Mary having opened the doors to wait for him, "How is he?"</p><p>"Basically fine," Sherlock called, resolving that no, he would not outright <em>lie</em> about his health and drug use. Let them <em>think</em> and assume things, but <em>he</em> would neither confirm nor deny it.</p><p>Molly scoffed, bitter, "I've seen healthier people on the slab."</p><p>"Yeah but, to be fair, you work with murder victims. They tend to be quite young."</p><p>"Not funny!" Molly glared at him.</p><p>He rolled his eyes and pulled his coat on again, heading for the door, "Little bit funny."</p><p>Molly's gaze just turned tearful, "If you keep taking what you're taking at the rate you're taking it, you've got <em>weeks</em>!"</p><p>"Exactly, weeks," he muttered, at least the person whose blood Mary had taken did, "Let's not get ahead of ourselves."</p><p>"For Christ's sake, Sherlock, it's not a game!" Molly snapped when he hopped out of the ambulance and couldn't even do so without swaying, "What about <em>Liberty</em>?!"</p><p>And then John knew it <em>had</em> to be bad if Molly was genuinely frightened for the man's child, "So this is real? You've really lost it. You're actually out of control."</p><p>Sherlock grit his teeth, "It's not <em>me</em> that's out of control, it's that lunatic Culverton!"</p><p>John swallowed hard and turned to Mary, "I'm sorry," he told her, as she stood beside him with her arms crossed, a look on her face that said 'see? What did I tell you' etched across it, "I thought this was some kind of…"</p><p>"Trick?" Mary supplied, shaking her head at him, "I <em>told</em> you John, I <em>told you</em> he needed us…"</p><p>"I know," John let out a breath, finally realizing how bad this was. If he had just reached out, <em>been there</em>, supported the man…maybe this could have been avoided, "I know, I just…"</p><p>Before another word could be spoken, a voice called out, "Mr. Holmes!"</p><p>John and Mary turned to see none other than Culverton Smith striding out the doors of a studio, with an entourage of his own.</p><p>"Thirty feet and closing," Sherlock said to them quietly, his back to Smith, "The most significant undetected serial killer in British criminal history."</p><p>Thank god Mrs. Hudson had taken Liberty to 221B.</p><p>"Help me bring him down," Sherlock implored John, "For Liberty, for Hamish," he added, "For Leena."</p><p>John's jaw clenched at that mention of his son, but, despite how mad Sherlock had been, and still was to think taking out one person would wake Leena up, he had never known Sherlock to be wrong about something like this…if he said the man was a serial killer…<em>he was</em>…and they were all in danger now, not just him or Mary, but every person in London.</p><p>And Sherlock was the only one trying to stop it.</p><p>He gave Sherlock a nod of his head that had the man nearly sagging with relief.</p><p>"Mr. Holmes!" Smith called again and Sherlock turned to face him, ignoring the cameramen the man brought with him to film all of this, "I don't do handshakes," he warned, moving forward with his arms wide, "It'll have to be a hug."</p><p>"I know," Sherlock muttered, leaning in just slightly to allow the man to hug him…or so he might think, really just needing to get close enough to nab the man's phone.</p><p>"Oh, Sherlock," Smith beamed when he pulled away, patting him on the back and shoulder, "Oh, Sherlock! What can I say? Thanks to you we're," he gestured to his group, "Uh, we're everywhere!"</p><p>"Mr. Holmes!" a reporter called out, "How did Culverton talk you into this?"</p><p>"Well, he…he's a detective," Smith joked, not letting Sherlock answer, pretending to be startled, "Maybe I just confessed!" that got a laugh out of the group, though he turned to Sherlock, John, and Mary and beckoned them towards the building, "Come on," he didn't wait to check if they followed, just went about his stroll, "Now, it's a...it's a new kind of breakfast cereal."</p><p>"Mr. Holmes, can you put on the hat?" another reporter called out.</p><p>"Oh, you should," Mary teased Sherlock, though she left off when she saw him wince, recalling who else wore a famous hat in his small group of friends, Hatman wouldn't be the same without his Catwoman after all…</p><p>"Yeah, he doesn't really wear the hat," John remarked.</p><p>"Kids will be getting two of their five-a-day before they've even left home!" Smith continued to extol, leading the crowd to a building, signing an autograph along the way.</p><p>"Sherlock's been amazing for us," a young woman, Smith's assistant remarked as she walked along with the trio, "We're beyond viral."</p><p>"What, sorry?" John frowned, "Beyond what?"</p><p>"I think they're talking about cereal," Mary whispered to him.</p><p>And, not for the first time, John felt completely lost.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Ok, so John was not quite so lost now that he stood in the studio, watching Smith advertising being a 'cereal killer' to try and push for a new breakfast product and then making a young assistant quite uncomfortable as he chatted with her after spitting out said breakfast product.</p><p>"Has it occurred to you," John began, glancing at Sherlock as he stood beside the man, Mary, still cross with him, on Sherlock's other side, "Anywhere in your drug-addled brain, that you've just been played?"</p><p>Sherlock rolled his eyes, "No."</p><p>Because his mind was not drug-addled, and he wasn't being played. If anything, HE was the one playing everyone else. He was holding himself together far more than he had at 221B, he was more focused and serious than he'd been at John's therapist's house, he was mentally calculating when he should let some sort of weakness or strength shine through. He had to be in control now. It was never more important, not when Smith was right in front of him, right in his grasp. He just had to dangle the carrot over the trap a little longer...</p><p>"For an ad campaign," John kept on. He'd been so sure, only minutes ago, that Sherlock had been right, that Smith WAS a serial killer. But, watching all this, the way the man brushed it off, the people fawning over themselves to assist him, his good natured response...he was beginning to doubt. He just...he wanted to make sure Sherlock wasn't being played, that this WAS real, or they'd all be in a great deal of trouble if they were wrong.</p><p>"It fits the profile," Sherlock murmured, sounding so much like Leena that John and Mary looked over at him for it, "The safest place for a serial killer to hide."</p><p>"Plain sight," Mary finished, nodding along as though it made sense to her.</p><p>Though, to be fair, it <em>was</em> the same for her. Going from a highly trained assassin to a civilian, just be a normal person or appear to be, do your normal life and it was funny how hardly anyone noticed you. She could imagine Leena saying something about it all. Hell, with the career she'd had in America, she was sure the woman handled her fair share of serial killers and had probably shared enough of those cases with Sherlock that he knew the very basics of how to spot one.</p><p>"Mr. Holmes?" Smith's assistant hurried over, "Culverton wants to know if you're ok going straight to the hospital?"</p><p>"Hospital?" John frowned, were they going to visit Leena? He didn't think Sherlock would ever allow the man near her hospital, nor allow him to know what hospital she was at to begin with.</p><p>"Culverton's doing a visit. The kids would <em>love</em> to meet you both. I think he sort of promised."</p><p>"Ok," Sherlock said simply, though Mary could see how his jaw clenched.</p><p>If there was any hospital in London he'd rather be at, it was Leena's, and this was just taking time away from his scheduled visits with her. But if this man was a serial killer and he was dong this to keep Leena safe, that was the only way she could see him letting this time at her bedside go.</p><p>"If you'd just like to come this way," she began to lead them off to the car waiting for them.</p><p>They followed the woman back to a limousine parked just outside the entrance, brought around just for them and quickly got in, Sherlock pulling out a phone and typing away on it.</p><p>"So," John took a breath, "What are we doing here? What's the point?"</p><p>"I needed a hug," Sherlock spoke, not looking away from the phone.</p><p>Mary, however, noticed then that the phone was not hers, John's, Sherlock's, or even Leena's and began to smirk, "You needed to get close enough to nick his, you mean."</p><p>Sherlock just glanced at her, then to the window as Smith approached.</p><p>"What do you think, Mr. Holmes?" Smith beamed, "'Cereal' killer."</p><p>"It's funny cos it's true," Sherlock muttered.</p><p>"See you at the hospital," Smith nodded to them, turning to go when Sherlock called out.</p><p>"Oh, you can have this back now!"</p><p>Smith paused, the noise of a message sending pinging, before the man turned back with a frown, "Have what back?"</p><p>Sherlock held out the man's own phone, "Thanks for the hug," he smirked, handing it back, "Oh, I sent and deleted a text. You might get a reply but I doubt it."</p><p>Smith gave a tense smile, pocketing the phone, this time on an inside pocket, as Sherlock eased back into the seat, "It's password protected."</p><p>Sherlock scoffed at that, "Please."</p><p>Smith eyed him a moment, before starting to smile, "We're going to have endless fun, Mr. Holmes, aren't we?"</p><p>"Oh no. No, not endless," he sent Smith a look, grim, before he turned away as the man left. He winced, moving a hand to his side, his arm across his middle, as though he were hugging himself.</p><p>"Need another hit, do you?" John shot at him, glaring.</p><p>Sherlock rolled his eyes, "What part of 'dropped twice' was missed?" he asked, it wasn't like he'd been able to brace himself or break his fall with his hands while they'd been cuffed and he'd been dropped on the stairs. That and, this way, he could apply pressure to his stomach, keep it from growling out loud around the Watsons. That would be embarrassing.</p><p>He took a deep breath and leaned his head back on the seat, trying to gather himself and will away his caffeine-withdrawal-induced headache. Just a little longer, he just had to last a little longer, then Culverton would be dealt with and his family would be safe…</p><p>~8~</p><p>'<em>Bit on the nose, isn't it?</em>' Leena's voice spoke in Sherlock's mind as he splashed some cold water on his face in the toilets of St. Caedwalla's Hospital, Smith's hospital of choice. Thankfully not Leena's hospital, he didn't think he would have been able to function the last 3 weeks if Smith had had access to his wife like that.</p><p>"What other hospital would he pick?" Sherlock muttered, looking at the image he saw of her in the reflection of the mirror, standing just behind him, just over his shoulder.</p><p>St. Caedwalla, the patron saint of serial killers.</p><p>Usually repentant ones, but he doubted Smith fell into that category.</p><p>The man had practically built this hospital, funded it, cut the ribbon for it, he knew every nook and cranny of it, he was the only one to know every hall and door.</p><p>Or so he thought.</p><p>Truly, people underestimated how easily a person could hack into their information, into funding data, blueprints, reports of hospital deaths…and where they happen, what rooms and how.</p><p>He rolled his eyes, able to hear John chatting with a nurse outside the door about their blog, Mary snorting away as John tried to insist that HE was the one who wrote the infamous Sherlock Holmes's blog and not the man himself.</p><p>'<em>Be smart, Locksley,</em>' Leena's voice warned, '<em>Be safe.</em>'</p><p>He nodded, "Always," and wiped off his face, moving to the door, drawing the attention of the nurse, who clearly didn't believe a word John had said, to Mary's amusement as she glanced up from her mobile, texting someone, likely the sitter for Hamish.</p><p>"Oh, Mr. Holmes," she beamed at him, "You feeling better?"</p><p>"Psychedelic!" Sherlock remarked, his lip quirking at the snort Mary gave, a joke between the two of them, though John did not look impressed. Really, that should have been a clue to John about the whole ruse. Mary would have been far more cross and worried than she was being if he was REALLY on drugs.</p><p>"I was just saying I love your blog…"</p><p>"Great. I..."</p><p>"It's MY blog," John cut in.</p><p>Sherlock, surprisingly, agreed, "It is. He writes the blog."</p><p>"It's yours?" the nurse turned to gape at him now.</p><p>"Yes," John nodded, glad to have some recognition.</p><p>"You write Sherlock's blog?"</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>"It's…gone downhill a little bit, hasn't it?"</p><p>Mary bit her lip to keep from outright laughing at that, holding up her hands in surrender when John glared at her for it.</p><p>The woman nodded to herself, realizing that was a bit rude and trying to get out of the situation, "Oh, it's this way, then," she turned and led them down the hall, the two men behind.</p><p>"Actually," Mary called, "I just need to pop to the loo, you go on," she insisted, moving her elbows in a 'go on' gesture even as her hands remained in her coat pockets, "I'll find my way. Not my first hospital."</p><p>John sighed but nodded, though Sherlock frowned at her, going on only when she winked at him.</p><p>Mary moved like she was going to enter the women's toilet, but pulled back as soon as the two disappeared around a corner, heading in the opposite direction.</p><p>Sherlock might have a plan for dealing with Smith…but she had her own plan for how to help Sherlock.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Sherlock tensed as he and John, entered a play area in the children's ward, all of the small patients and their nurses and parents gathered around, waiting for them, clapping as soon as they saw the duo approaching, which caused Smith, who had been in the middle of the room, to turn and face them.</p><p>"Oh, my God, I love your blog!" one of the nurses called out.</p><p>Sherlock just grinned at her, "You're welcome!"</p><p>"Right, here he comes, the internet 'tec!" Smith was gathering the children together, "You all know Sherlock Holmes!"</p><p>Sherlock's smile grew a bit more genuine as the children clapped even louder to see him, "Hello."</p><p>"Oh, and Doctor Watson, of course," Smith added, chuckling a bit when the clapping was a bit less enthused, "Mr. Holmes. I was wondering, well," he gestured at the kids, "We all were, weren't we? Maybe you could tell us about some of your cases."</p><p>"No," Sherlock shook his head, really just wanting to get Smith alone now that he'd 'made his appearance' for the children.</p><p>"Yes," John hissed beside him.</p><p>"Yes!" Sherlock amended, "Absolutely, yes," and began to walk towards the children, keeping Smith in sight as the man turned to go sit off to the side, "The main feature of interest in the field of criminal investigation is not the sensational aspects of the crime itself, but rather the iron chain of reasoning, from cause to effect, that reveals, step by step, the solution. That's the only truly remarkable aspect of the entire affair. Now, I will share with you the facts and evidence as they were available to me, and in this very room you will all attempt to solve the case of Blessington the Poisoner."</p><p>"I think you slightly gave away the ending," John remarked.</p><p>"There were five main suspects…"</p><p>"One of them called <em>Blessington</em>."</p><p>"But it's more about <em>how</em> he did it…"</p><p>"Poison?" John guessed, honestly not sure if it was the drugs making him so scattered as to give away the plot or a natural impatience.</p><p>"Ok," Sherlock agreed, he'd done a poor job with that tale, though it made the children laugh, "Drearcliff House. Remember that one, John? One murder, ten suspects."</p><p>"Ten, yeah."</p><p>"All of them guilty."</p><p>"Sherlock…" John sighed, shaking his head that it may not be the best one to tell children.</p><p>Sherlock frowned, trying to think, "Uh, what did you call that one, John? Um, something to do with murder at the zoo."</p><p>"Yeah, I called it Murder at the Zoo."</p><p>"Or…or was it The Case of the Killer Orang-Utan?"</p><p>'<em>You should have put the hat on, Locksley,</em>' Leena's voice teased, '<em>Everyone loves the hat.</em>'</p><p>"No one more than you though eh?" he asked himself quietly, unaware that the others had actually heard him and were giving him an odd look. He shook his head, "Right, um, a case…or um…questions? Any questions?"</p><p>"Mr. Holmes?" Smith raised his hand, "How do you catch a serial killer?"</p><p>Sherlock turned to the man, sitting beside a little girl and holding a Barbie doll in his hand, observing him for a moment, "Same way you catch any other killer," as though he would tell a serial killer HOW he was planning to catch him!</p><p>"No, but most killers kill someone they know," Smith argued, "In that case you're looking for a murderer in a tiny social grouping."</p><p>"Um, Mr. Smith," the nurse that led them there spoke up, "Um, I'm…I'm just, er, wondering. Maybe this isn't a suitable subject for the children."</p><p>"Nurse Cornish. How long have you been with us now?"</p><p>"Seven years."</p><p>He looked at her, "Seven years," and stared till she began to nervously smile, "Ok," before he turned back to Sherlock, "Serial killers, though, choose their victims at random. Surely that must make it more difficult?" his tone had clearly made everyone else in the room very uncomfortable, he sounded like he was questioning it, knew the answer, and was challenging Sherlock all at the same time.</p><p>"Wrong," a voice said behind him, followed by the squeaking of a wheelchair being led in, Mary moving to help the person resting there up stand up once the chair was parked, "Honestly, Mr. Smith, if you're going to try to profile a serial killer…" the woman smirked, "Leave it to the professional."</p><p>She stepped forward, introducing herself to the children, even as her gaze and smile remained on Sherlock.</p><p>"Special Agent Jacqueline Holmes of Scotland Yard."</p>
<hr/><p>A/N: I have to add the End Notes here because they are too long to fit in 5000 characters:</p><p>AHHH! Leena's awake! And after everything happening, everything going on right now, I like to think she's ready to kick some shins in ;)</p><p>So, long A/N, some notes on the chapter.</p><p>
  <strong>Sherlock's spiral:</strong>
</p><p>I couldn't see him resorting to drugs, not after having Leena in his life, not with Liberty counting on him. I was honestly a tiny bit thinking he wasn't actually on as many drugs or as bad of drugs as Molly or John made it out to be in the episode because he was a little too put together, even if he struggled in some areas, and too coherent at times, but that's neither here nor there in this version of it. Despite that, it didn't mean Sherlock wouldn't spiral in some way or let himself go. He's suffered a terrible trauma and his world is on the verge of falling apart and, right now, the only thing he's living for, the only thing keeping him going is that his wife MIGHT wake up and his daughter definitely needs him :(</p><p>I feel like it hits closer to home and is more relatable, in a way. Because when people are hurting, not all of us turn to drugs. Some of us can't stomach anything. Some of us just can't sleep or sleep peacefully. Some of us try to distract ourselves. It's sort of a more human way to cope, and seeing Leena gone from his life it's sort of like straining that part that makes him 'human' and stretching it, pushing it to the extreme. Sherlock is reacting in a way the average person might, but he just takes it too far without a real support system there to keep him in check :( I feel like, when it's drugs, a person can go 'well, they're doing it to themselves, shame on them, they're just a druggie' and brush aside the pain that's causing it. In the episode that might have worked out because it gave the added edge to John in having him continue to push Sherlock away and ignore all Sherlock was trying to do to make amends and do what Mary asked. HERE, the human reaction reflects that pain. Here, Sherlock is in so much more pain than in the episode, because it's not his friend's wife or his friend, it's HIS wife, it's his world, the mother of his child, who is in jeopardy :'(</p><p>Everything he has is given to Liberty. He's thinking about when she needs her next bottle, not when he should eat. He's thinking about how much sleep she's getting, and not how he should. He's thinking about when she needs her nappy changed and a bath, not when he should clean himself up. He's thinking about her being happy, and not how he should take care of himself. His hygiene, eating, sleeping, everything he should keep doing because it's healthy, he's not even registering as important, because, to him, right now, Leena and Liberty are so much more important :(</p><p>In my mind, and Leena hinted a bit at it when the dream-her remarked that Sherlock goes off like he's spiraled when he's living off caffeine, Sherlock would still go down a path of self-loathing and self-destruction. But it wouldn't be drugs. Him being as manic and out of sorts in this episode manifested as the result of him not eating right or sleeping enough. He's exhausted, mentally and physically and emotionally, he's not sleeping, he's running on fumes and caffeine and resorted to some extra adrenaline to keep him going. He's so scared of sleeping, either having nightmares of Leena or fearing someone might harm Liberty while he's out, that he forces himself to stay awake. He can't stand up right without swaying as a result of all of it, he's too hyper because there's nothing but coffee in him, he's not handling this well at all :( It's just that, because of what the caffeine, little sleep, and no food, and growing paranoia is doing to him is making others misunderstand what's actually going on. Not many people are privy to Leena and Sherlock's private time, to how they coped after his faked death and near death, though they did see changes in Sherlock in how he noticed Leena and was more aware and physically affectionate with her.</p><p>But he would never, <em>ever</em> dishonor Leena's memory by giving in to drugs and making all of her efforts in life worth nothing, he would never, ever, EVER let himself become that strung out while <em>their daughter</em> was depending on him.</p><p>Going to dip a little further into Sherlock's story-psychology here for why he's falling apart the way he is:</p><p>Sherlock has always had Leena in his life, since he was a child. He's latched onto her, accepted her, bonded with her on a level potentially a little out of the norm. Given what is discovered in the next episode, it may make a bit more sense that he became so close to Leena if his psyche was still reeling and healing from certain events and, perhaps, a part of him that was aware of what happened as a child felt he had to stick with Leena to 'protect her from the east wind' Mycroft was always going on about. Leena has been a <em>fixture</em> in his life since he was a child, his best friend, his support, there with him through school and university and his addiction. SHE was the reason he cleaned up, got his life together, she is the one he fights for and hones his skills to impress. So much of his life, in some way, revolves around Leena, as hers does him.</p><p>She goes to America and they are constantly in touch via email and phone call and texting. Even apart, they are still together and there for each other. She comes back and their relationship flourishes, the time apart helping Sherlock realize he wants her beside him in all things, to realize he cares for her as more than a friend. Then he fakes his death, completely cut off from that one constant in his life. No phone, no text, no emails, nothing for 2 years but still knowing she was safe and alive. So when he comes back, he's even more aware of her, what she means to him, how he feels for her, the life he wants to have with her. Being that cut off made him more aware of what he was without and how much he never wants that to happen again. He wants to be her husband, he wants to have a family with her, he wants the 2.5 kids and the dog and everything. Even more so after he nearly dies of the gunshot wound from Mary because, while Mary may have specifically shot him where she did to not-kill him, part of him surviving was how he fell and how he kept calm and how he ignored the pain, all of which could have killed him if HE hadn't made the efforts he did. He really came close to dying and leaving her and that opened his eyes to a lot of things.</p><p>But...in everything that has happened, the death and near deaths and faked deaths, it's been on HER side to suffer, it was Leena suffering his departures more than him. She had to live 2 years <em>hoping</em> he was alive but not where/what he was doing, if he was safe, if he'd died while he was out there. He had his puzzle with dismantling Moriarty to occupy some of his mind. HE chose to leave, it was his plan. He gets shot and he would have died, it would have been the end of it, but LEENA would suffer from his death. SHE was the one bearing the burden of losing him.</p><p>This time, this was the first true time that he truly feared for Leena, that HE experienced that loss, the reality of it all. A handful of other times where her life was in danger, like when Moriarty took her hostage or when others held a gun on her, it was a brief moment. It felt like forever to him, but it passed. This<em> isn't</em> passing. On top of his wife, the center of his world, possibly dying, he has a newborn baby depending on him, his best friend has cut him out, he has almost no support and he is utterly terrified that if someone can take his wife away, they can take his child away too.</p><p>He <em>has</em> to stay awake, he <em>can't</em> sleep. Sleep means being unaware of dangers to Liberty, sleep means missing updates about Leena, sleep means missing time with her, sleep means time wasted researching and solving crimes to make everything safer for his child and wife. He can't sleep, he has to protect his family. He can't sleep or he'll see her being shot over and over and dying in front of his eyes in his worst nightmares. Leena had nightmares of him dying, but they are different people and they handle/react to that differently. He doesn't handle it well. Because he is a self-proclaimed sociopath, he only feels things related to Leena (and John/Mary), so when it happens to Leena it's off the charts to him and he can't process it as well as the average person.</p><p>He's manic because he's hopped up on caffeine and little food, running himself ragged because he has to be there for Leena and protect Liberty and help Leena and keep Liberty happy and he can't stop or he'll think about Leena's life hanging in the balance. He's reciting Shakespeare to Liberty because that's what her mum would have done and it's a way to be closer to Leena and it makes Liberty smile. He will shoot at anyone who comes to the flat, even Mrs. Hudson, because anyone, literally <em>anyone</em>, could be a threat to his family. Subconsciously, I think he feels that 'anyone, even family, can be a threat' because the East Wind is always in the back of his head even if he might not realize it. Maybe part of him recognized a certain woman in her disguise and it triggered that frantic need to keep Liberty safe because a threat was in his home and near his daughter and he didn't realize it at first.</p><p>Now that he's in front of Smith, he has to be on top of his game to make sure he takes the man down. He has to be careful in how he acts, what he says, what he does, to ensure he can stop the man. He has to pick and choose the weaknesses he displays and when he appears to be put together.</p><p>
  <strong>Other people:</strong>
</p><p>Everyone thinks it's drugs because of how manic Sherlock is, how disjointed, how scattered, how weak he is, how he's talking to thin air. But, really, it's sleep deprivation, caffeine, malnourishment and a very near mental break over the stress of possibly losing his wife. He may very well be hallucinating Leena the way John was Mary in the episode, John wasn't on drugs it was just the trauma. But, again, John and Sherlock are different people who handle and process their trauma in different ways.</p><p>Mary, Mary is on a separate page than Sherlock or John here, but it's that distance that sort of allows her to see what's going on and ways to help. Sherlock wants to be friends with John again, he never didn't want to be friends, because he has a better chance of protecting his family with John at his side and John is his best friend now that Leena's his wife. Mary sees that. And John DOES regret breaking things off the way he did, but he's ashamed and humiliated and stubborn, she sees that too. Mary knows Sherlock can't focus just on getting John back, not when he has his family falling apart and that John won't go to Sherlock unless there's something dangerously wrong (or a danger to Liberty). So Mary takes that into her own hands. She whispers in John's ear about how she's afraid Sherlock's gone back to drugs, even if she knows he hasn't. SHE sets Sherlock up with fake blood tests of some laced with drugs, to get John sympathetic and worried and willing to help. She knows the only way for John to make amends is to see how badly Sherlock is doing and how much he's struggling, which he couldn't do when he cut off contact with Sherlock. She's a sneaky genius assassin, she knows how Sherlock and John are even not being a profiler like Leena.</p><p>We see at the end though, that she's also had someone helping her to work out the next step of getting the gang back together ;) We'll see just how/when Leena woke up and got Mary involved and how far in the next chapter ;)</p><p>
  <strong>The Clot:</strong>
</p><p>It turns out it's medically true. Pregnant women are much more likely to develop a clot either during pregnancy, during labor, or after delivery than women who aren't pregnant :( It's terrifying to think of :( Originally it was intended for the gunshot wound to merely have more complications than originally thought. But I couldn't see Mycroft not getting the best surgeons and doctors in for his sister-in-law and then my mom was talking about one of her co-workers who has a clotting disorder and is pregnant and how she has to be very, very careful because of how much more likely women are to clot and I started thinking about how any sort of severe wound does increase your risk of throwing a clot, and the two merged :( I hated to do it to Leena, but Sherlock has sort of seen and experienced his own gunshot wound, so he knows it can be recovered from, he knows what to expect. He hasn't experienced pregnancy outside of Mary and she was fine so he wouldn't be thinking about clots. Having it happen was something he couldn't predict or plan for and sort of triggered his real spiral. Because he had that hope, having survived his own wound, that Leena would to. If he could, she could. A clot was not something he knows how to handle :'(</p><p>
  <strong>To end:</strong>
</p><p>I hope Sherlock's behavior and depiction made sense in the story. He wouldn't resort to drugs, he wouldn't do that to Leena, but he would let himself fall apart if he thought she was really going to die :( The first 2 weeks he could hope, he could believe she'd be ok, because it was just a single wound. After the clot, he has a harder time and, like the 'unsubs' Leena follows, he's escalating in his own way to fixation on Smith as a way to wake up Leena :(</p><p>I know in the episode it seemed a little too much like Sherlock knew everything that was happening or going to happen, so I made some tweaks to try and make it just a bit more human and to sort of reflect the world he's built with Leena and how he expected her to influence their social circle. Like...he knows John is going to a new therapist, even if Mary didn't tell him (she did, but he'd worked out a week earlier who and when it would be), and he plans to go there to confront John and ask for help to take down Smith. He wants to prove he CAN take the man down and protect people so John doesn't have to worry Mary could be hurt.</p><p>He does NOT plan for Molly to show up, though he does suspect John might possibly want him checked out for drugs first given his appearance but he doesn't actually think it would happen because Leena would never expect him to be on drugs and how many times has she told the others that? So he didn't organize the drug test, that was Mary because she knows John.</p><p>He was not expecting Mrs. Hudson to stick him in a boot, like in the episode, because he's been taking care of Liberty and isn't that a sign that he's in his right mind and not drugged up? That she doesn't have to worry? :(</p><p>As for John, he made a bad and rash and angry decision when he first saw Leena shot. He cut ties because god that could have been his own wife. But he regrets it. He's ashamed of himself for doing it, he's humiliated he reacted so poorly, and he doesn't know how to face Sherlock because either he's in the wrong or Mary made him. Seeing a therapist is his way of having an out, a reason to apologize, if someone else says he went too far and should work it out. It wouldn't be on him or Mary. Seeing Sherlock 'on drugs' just makes him feel worse and even more angry about himself :(</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. The Lying Detective: Upward Climb</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I added a scene with John at the end even though it doesn't feature Leena or Sherlock, mostly because I felt like it was sort of needed to show some foreshadowing and also a few glimpses into what's happening with Sherlock and Leena at that point in time ;)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>A few hours ago...</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Mary nearly gasped when she saw something shift out of the corner of her eye from where she'd been checking on Leena's vitals at the end of her night shift. She had swapped shifts with another nurse, wanting to be home when John came home later. It was his first day with his new therapist and she knew it was always a draining experience for him to go to one. She could remember how he'd been when he'd been speaking to someone to cope with Sherlock's 'death' before, that was grief, this was anger, and anger always took more out of him than grief. He'd seen grief, he'd lost people in the war, anger always gripped him hard. He was such a good man that when he was angry it affected him more. She wanted to be there for him. Even if she was cross with him right now, she was still his wife and this was still something difficult for him. She was just grateful she'd finally gotten through to him and worn him down enough that he even agreed to speak to a 'third party' about what happened at the Aquarium and how he'd reacted.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And she knew, seeing Leena in such bad shape for so many weeks had slowly wormed its way into John's mind. The longer Leena didn't wake up, the worse John felt.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And, speaking of, she hurried over to the bed when she saw the girl in question's eyes starting to flutter, her face scrunching in pain.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Jackie?" Mary reached out to take her hand one good hand. The arm she'd been shot in was in a sling and bound lightly to her front so she wouldn't move it too much. She looked around, making sure the lights were dim enough that when Leena opened her eyes she wouldn't be in even more pain, they were low so she should be fine.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Leena let out a breath wincing and shutting her eyes again as the room swam for a moment when she opened them. It took her a minute or two to get her bearings, turning her head to see Mary beside her. She was confused for all of a second, before a throbbing in her shoulder drew her attention to where her arm was in a sling. It all came back to her then, the aquarium, the gun, the pain...Sherlock, with tears in his eyes, begging her...</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She took a breath and wiggled her fingers, letting out the relief in her breath when they moved though there was a tugging on her wound for it.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"It didn't do too much nerve damage," Mary told her, guessing where her thoughts had gone, "Might be a bit more noticeable when you grab things, but nothing some therapy won't help. Bone repaired, wound stitched up," she glanced at the medications in the bags dripping down the tubes to her, "You'll be on blood thinners for quite a while, but you made it, Jacks."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Leena took another deep breath, looking around and spotting a few items on the table beside her bed. Her gaze locked on a single Robin Hood book standing there. She stared at it for a moment or two, some vague whispers in her mind, like when you would hear a whispered conversation and weren't sure you'd heard everything right, trying to think about what she HAD heard, and the very familiar voice who had said them. She turned her head to Mary, "On a scale of stopping petty theft to catching a genocidal maniac…how bad is Sherwood?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Mary gave her a grim smile, understanding, "Serial Killer," she offered, "And..." she hesitated, before mustering the words, "Alone. John...he didn't react well to it almost being me."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Leena let out another breath, sounding more like a groan than anything, resting her head back on the pillow and squeezing Mary's hand. She closed her eyes and contemplated that, the whispered words she was sure now that Sherlock had been saying while he'd been visiting her, for she had no doubts he'd been visiting her constantly, now making more sense, now clearer. </em>
  <em>Sherlock was at a 9 then, on the scale of what sort of case he was throwing himself into to try and not feel like a failure, which was not a good thing. She knew what he was like when she was there beside him, to keep him in check, to keep him from getting too consumed, to be either the voice of reason or the source of encouragement and reassurance…she hadn't been there this time, nor had John, and her mind was already racing as she catalogued what state he'd be in now.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>There were always other variables that could affect him. But if she knew Sherlock, and she did after more than 20 years with him, she could take a very close guess, she felt. Adding in his intention that HE be shot, that SHE had been shot, that their daughter was a newborn, that John had cut ties, that Mary was trying, and the whispers, the faint recollections of what he'd been up to as she'd started to rouse...it was not going to be a good state at all. She knew what he was like when he felt that those dearest to him were in a true and near danger, he wouldn't sleep, he wouldn't eat, he wouldn't take care of himself till it was dealt with. She could usually convince him to do those things, she would be there to care for him, and without her...she could only imagine how others saw him now.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She looked over at Mary once more, "I need your help, Mary."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Mary just nodded, seeing a plan forming behind her eyes, "Anything."</em>
</p><p>~8~</p><p>Sherlock could only stare in shock at the sight of Leena standing there, real and solid and actually <em>there</em>, not just the final pieces of his mind fracturing and conjuring her image to help him cope. The fact that Mary brought her in, that John was staring, that everyone else in the room had turned to her, it told him it wasn't just him.</p><p>He was sure he was gaping as he blinked at her.</p><p>She looked about as bad as he did, though she'd basically been in a coma for a little more than a month so she had an excuse for the weight loss and the pale complexion, the weakness she was trying so hard to cover up. Her left arm was in a sling, tucked against her chest, but her hair was washed, she'd managed a shower or some sort of bath before she came there, likely for his benefit so he wouldn't have to see her in worse shape, dressed in her typical clothing and thankfully not a hospital gown or the clothes she'd been shot in.</p><p>Mary.</p><p>He realized then, <em>Mary</em> had known, she'd had a hand in this, in bringing Leena to them, she had to have.</p><p>He didn't know whether to plot her murder for not telling him his wife was awake, for clearly she'd been awake enough to plot even this small thing, or calculate next week's lottery numbers to give her as a token of his thanks in bringing his wife to him.</p><p>Leena merely stepped to his side, not needing him to speak to read every expression on his face. While they did communicate that way, just their expressions, they truly didn't do it very often. Usually only when they truly needed to communicate without others seeing or when they were in a position where they couldn't speak freely…right now the words just weren't coming out.</p><p>But she saw it, he knew she did, he knew she had noticed every sag, every under-eye bruise, every hair of his stubble, had smelled the lack of hygiene on him, seen his matted hair, the exhaustion in his eyes, the change in color of his skin two shades paler, the way his cheekbones were even sharper than normal. And he knew she saw the tears filling his eyes now, though he refused to let them gather past the corners since Smith was there and waiting for any weakness to pounce on. He knew she saw his relief and joy and thankfulness and love and happiness and…and so much more.</p><p>He knew she could tell his heart had finally started beating again to see her breathing.</p><p>Leena reached out and took his hand, squeezing it, telling him she was truly there, she was real, she was beside him, and then she turned, smiling that smile at Smith that had Sherlock smirking automatically to see. It was the smile she only gave to their enemies when they were trying so hard to be clever but weren't managing it well enough for her, when she was about to tear them apart. He knew that smile, it was his smile, she'd learned it from him.</p><p>"It's not as random as you think," Leena continued to explain, "Serial killers have a reason and a cause behind who they target, even though they themselves may not be fully conscious or aware of it. There was a case my team handled, a man who killed women who had an eye that was just slightly lower than the other, didn't even know he'd done it or that was why those women had to die, but he chose them for that. There's always a pattern to be found," she eyed Smith, "One just needs to understand the killer to know the victim."</p><p>"Is that so?" Smith tried to smile, though it appeared cold and challenging to those present.</p><p>Leena gave a short, tilted nod, humming in affirmation, and Sherlock had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from outright grinning. Smith didn't even realize the trap he was falling into. Every word he said, every move he made, every expression, was being added to Leena's profile of him, he was giving himself away to her, helping her predict what he would do, allowing her into his mind, without even seeing it. HE was adept at assessing a person, from how they styled their hair to the clothing they wore, seeing clues there. But they were often impersonal things, it was just fact to him. Leena, she was the one who could look at an expression, hear a nuance in a voice, notice a change in body language, that often escaped him. She was the one who got personal. It was why they worked so well together, she handled the human aspect of it.</p><p>"There are actually four types of serial killers," Leena added, casually, as though she were giving a light little lesson, "The visionary, usually someone mentally unstable who just…snaps one day, thinks they're another person or that god told them to do it. The mission-oriented, not normally psychotic, they kill because the 'world would be a better place without such and such.' Hitler would be a good example of that. Then there are the ones who want power and control, often abused or made powerless as a child, they exert force to make themselves feel more powerful than they actually are. And the hedonist. There's three subcategories for the hedonist."</p><p>"Lust, Thrill, Profit," Sherlock managed to say. Admittedly NOT the first words he thought he'd say to her when she woke up, but they didn't always need physical words to know what the other felt, not now.</p><p>Leena turned her smile at him, a real and genuine one now, "Look who was <em>paying attention</em>," she squeezed his hand again and Sherlock blinked, something telling in her look, in her expression that could only be one thing.</p><p>The way she was looking at him, she was revealing that SHE had been paying attention too. When she'd been in the coma, she had <em>heard</em> him. He didn't know if she'd heard every word he'd said, but clearly she had heard enough of Culverton Smith to know the danger going on, or piece it together on the way there. She wouldn't be giving the man a lesson in serial killers if she hadn't worked out he was one, and he doubted it was just the random claim he'd made on Twitter that alerted her to this.</p><p>She turned back to Smith, "A hedonist gets a perverse pleasure out of killing, their victims are expendable, a means to an end. They are fueled either by lust, wanting sex and to play out a fantasy…" she eyed the man with a queer expression, making Sherlock smirk when he saw a crack form in Smith's own façade, an insult Leena had dished out without words. She was either saying that the man was completely unappealing, which he was, serial killer and all, or that the only way the man would be able to get sex was by forcing someone, neither a compliment, "By profit, where they kill to steal or get ahead in life," Smith laughed, opening his mouth as though he were going to crack a joke about how he didn't need to steal for his fame, but Leena just kept on, "And by the thrill, they just want to induce pain and terror in their victims, makes it more exciting. Serial killing," she turned to the room, turning her back on Smith, "Is an expression of power and ego. Often brought about by people who aren't worth the air they breathe no matter how important they think they are."</p><p>Sherlock's eyes narrowed when, at those final words, Smith tugged the head off the Barbie without realizing it.</p><p>"To be deemed a serial killer, one must have three criteria," Leena spoke so easily about the subject that the children were more curious than alarmed, which Sherlock knew was not something Smith wanted, he wanted them uncomfortable and frightened, "Quantity. At least 3 victims, typically more. A place, not usually in the same location, otherwise how would they get away with it? But if they plan it carefully, it can be possible. And time, a cooling off period, lying low, till the urge to kill rises again. Which means," she looked around, "For someone to be called a serial killer, there's evidence of more than three victims," and turned back to Smith pointedly.</p><p>Sherlock grinned darkly beside her as the implication began to settle among the staff and the adults who were wising up to what she was saying. That, if HE had called this man a killer…and to call him a serial killer, it meant <em>he knew</em> of at least 3 victims who were tied to this man, that there were more than one, and that he knew who those victims were, how they died, and how they connected to Smith.</p><p>"Ultimately," Sherlock added, feeling back on his game, in control once more, with Leena beside him helping his case, "For full satisfaction, it requires plain sight. Additionally, serial killers are easily profiled," he nodded to his wife, "They tend to be social outcasts, educationally sub-normal…"</p><p>"So you only catch the dumb ones," Smith tried to joke, tried to take control back.</p><p>But Leena wouldn't have it.</p><p>Sherlock took a deep breath, seeing her expression, knowing that she knew Smith wanted the attention, wanted to make this more uncomfortable, wanted to make a spectacle and truly would NOT allow it. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction, because this was HER area of expertise, and she knew what Smith wanted, she would do all she could to throw him off balance.</p><p>He could finally breathe, he felt, finally, <em>finally</em> breathe…because nothing and no one could stop them when they were together. They were a team.</p><p>"Oh, not at all," Leena laughed, and Sherlock knew it was intentional as well, Smith wanted HER uncomfortable and to feel threatened, by being so at ease it was the best way to challenge him, "You would be surprised by how many high IQ serial killers there are. The smarter they think themselves, the more likely they are to be caught," she added, "You see, individuals such as that, spend <em>so long</em> coming up with tricks and traps and plotting their crimes that they might even be able to form an alibi to get away with it. But…" she added when Smith had begun to smirk, "Such a high IQ also makes a person prone to bragging…"</p><p>John had to hide a 'cough' at that, thinking about Sherlock and his own deductive reasoning.</p><p>Mary elbowed him in the side for it.</p><p>"They will tell anyone and everyone about what they've done," Leena eyed Smith, "Because they think no one will believe them. Those sorts, especially, work hard to build their image. They might even go so far as to use an accusation to bolster it," she could see a handful of people in the corner of her eye, Smith's team, since they didn't appear to be parents or nurses, fidgeting at that, because it was exactly what Smith had done, "They're superficially charming, smooth talkers, with outstanding charisma. But they don't actually <em>care</em> about other people. They like being in positions where they are the boss, they are the top, hardly noticing the people who work for them…or even how long they might have been working for them," her gaze darted to Cornish and back to Smith when the woman shifted, getting the point, "They create such a public persona that 'it couldn't possibly be them!' to others," she looked around the room, "Statistically, it's most likely to be a male between the ages of 25 and 55, likes to talk, likes to brag, be in charge…hmm…" she hummed, "I'm only seeing one person like that in this room," and her gaze fell on Smith who, for the briefest second, looked genuinely worried, before he started laughing.</p><p>"So someone with money, power, and fame," Smith chuckled, "Could be the Queen!" he joked, "Some things make you untouchable."</p><p>It was John who spoke next, as though truly starting to see Smith as the threat Sherlock warned him about, if Leena could build a profile of a typical serial killer and spot one in Smith, "No one's untouchable."</p><p>"No one?" Smith challenged.</p><p>"No one," Leena agreed.</p><p>Smith smiled, "Well then, a big round of applause for Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson!" the man called out, the group around them clapping, though the children were more excited than the adults who had picked up on Leena's lesson very well, "And our special guest, Mrs. Holmes," he turned to them, eager for this 'lesson' to be over and to get everyone's thoughts off of what she'd revealed and alluded to, "Thank you so much for coming. Thank you."</p><p>Sherlock looked down when Leena leaned against him a bit more, before squeezing her hand and leading her out of the room, letting Smith speak to the kids and giving him time to just…</p><p>He almost crushed her in the hug he bestowed upon her the moment they were in the hall, not knowing how much time they actually would have alone, though the Watsons seemed to be giving them privacy in not immediately following them. He was sure he really would have crushed her, only the flash of her sling connecting to his mind keeping the hug gentle and tighter on her good side.</p><p>"Leena…" he breathed, his chin resting on the top of her head as she ducked her face into his chest, "Oh, Leena…"</p><p>Leena chuckled a bit, though he heard a wet sniffle join it, "I'd never leave you, Locksley," she murmured, pulling back to look up at him, tears in her eyes, "I'm sorry it took so long to get back."</p><p>He shook his head, "You're back, that's all I care about."</p><p>"Really?" she teased, "I could have sworn I heard something about ridding London of danger so it'd be safe to come home."</p><p>There was a pink flush to his cheeks as he realized his hypothesis about her hearing him while in the coma was true.</p><p>But Leena didn't linger long on that, reaching up to touch his face with her good hand, her thumb sliding over his cheekbones, "You should have slept," she murmured, able to read the hours he spent awake on his face, "You do no one any good by burning yourself out, Sherlock."</p><p>He looked at her, his eyes swimming with emotion, "How do you know it's sleep and not…"</p><p>She smiled at him, "You would never do that to me," she stated, so firm in her belief it could never be drugs that it stole the breath from him, "You promised."</p><p>He closed his eyes and leaned into her touch, so thankful that she saw through it all, saw what others didn't want to see or didn't think to see, saw the exhaustion and not drugs, "I had to keep you and Liberty safe. If someone could…"</p><p>He didn't finish the sentence, but Leena didn't need him to to understand what he meant. If someone could get to HER, with him right beside her, there was nothing to stop someone going after their daughter too and he had to be better. He had to protect Liberty, and to do so he had to be awake and alert for any threat.</p><p>"Well, I'm here now," she patted his cheek till he opened his eyes, "And once we stop Smith, you are <em>sleeping</em>, Mr. Holmes."</p><p>He chuckled, "Not going to tell me to give up the case, Mrs. Holmes?"</p><p>"That man IS a serial killer," she confirmed, having worked on her own profile of it the second she was able to sit up on her hospital bed, Mary letting her borrow her laptop to draft it up.</p><p>It had killed her to not immediately call him and let him know she was awake. Initially she had thought that she could surprise him when he came with Liberty to sit with her as soon as visiting hours began. Mary had said he'd been there every day during those hours. She had planned to complete a profile on Smith so he could be better prepared to confront the man. But then he didn't arrive, and Mary came in saying Mrs. Hudson had called her and was taking him to John at his therapist's house and she knew that all those plans were going to need to be revised, especially when she found out this was John's first day at the therapist.</p><p>She knew her husband. She could guess that he'd work out when John would give in and go see a therapist, and he would choose that day to get to John, to ask him to help him confront Smith. She'd just hoped that he would come to her room first, so she could give him the profile to use when he went to go ask John for his help. Mrs. Hudson had jumped the gun a bit there in the middle, the poor dear probably meant well, fearing for Sherlock and Liberty, and wanting John to get over himself. But she knew it would throw off Sherlock's plans.</p><p>If she had to say, she would assume Sherlock had some grand plan for how he'd appear to John, what he'd say, how prepared he'd be for the confrontation. If he was as hopped up on coffee as she feared he might be, given Mary's confirmation of how he appeared day to day, he would have been cut off from it by Mrs. Hudson's actions and he wouldn't be at his best to speak to John. He'd be fighting a powerful migraine and he'd be giving an impression of being a little too desperate and weak to John. He would want to give an appearance of strength, to show he could protect people.</p><p>With that ruined...there was only one other way she could think of to help Sherlock get John on board and to stay at his side until she could get there. Because, by then, Sherlock would be about to confront John and a serial killer and she didn't want to distract him with knowing she was on the way, she had to just GET there first. She needed John to think Sherlock WAS on drugs, she needed Smith to think it too. It was an old trick they had used a few times in the past, not just with Magnussen.</p><p>It was truly surprising how often an enemy would allow you closer when they thought you were at your weakest, when they thought they had the upper hand. And with this particular man, she feared Sherlock might take it a bit far, make himself too vulnerable to lure Smith in closer. If she could just help control how 'vulnerable' he appeared, she would go for making others think it was drugs than anything else. They'd look for that, treat for that, and not realize he was fully functioning and aware.</p><p>They got closer to Magnussen by allowing him to think Sherlock was back on the drugs. They could get him closer to Smith through the same means. But having John at his side, she needed him to STAY there till she could get there. If he thought Sherlock fell back on drugs he would not stray far from Sherlock, he was too much a doctor and a good man.</p><p>So she'd asked Mary to find a blood sample riddled with drugs and go to the therapist, to tell John she'd run a test on Sherlock the last time he had visited her. Mary had been the one to think of going to the therapist with an ambulance and with Molly to make it seem more like a real drug test to John if Molly thought it was real. Mary told her she'd been feeding John concerns that Sherlock was using again, not that she believed it, but just to get him concerned and willing to just SEE Sherlock. John already had the thought in mind that Sherlock was on drugs, they just had to 'prove' it to him.</p><p>While Mary had been 'testing' Sherlock with Molly, SHE had been working on getting herself checked out of the hospital because she insisted on joining them to confront Smith. Had taken a cab to the hospital Mary texted her they were headed to, and the woman had met her at the entrance. With a bloody wheelchair and a smirk on her face, claiming 'she shouldn't be walking so much just yet.' She thought Mary just wanted to make some sort of grand entrance with her. Either way, it had worked and the look of astonishment on Sherlock's face, the joy, the happiness, the relief, had been worth it.</p><p>She hadn't heard <em>everything</em> Sherlock had said when he would sit at her bedside, but she heard enough to know about Smith and to know his genuine fear and alarm about the man and it was enough to put her on edge as well, "So long as he's free, the world is less safe for our daughter."</p><p>Sherlock smiled at her, reaching up to grip her wrist in his hand, ignoring the tremor running through his own, to turn his head and kiss her palm.</p><p>"Sleeping <em>and</em> eating," she warned him, "If I have to see that purple shirt hanging off of you…"</p><p>He leaned in and kissed her, wincing at bit as the thought of how it had to be horrible because…really, he HAD let his hygiene go in his frantic devotion to keep his girls safe…but Leena didn't care, having been away from him too long herself, and kissed him back. They pulled away only when air became an issue, resting their foreheads against each other.</p><p>Before Leena's nose crinkled, "Shower first though."</p><p>Sherlock could only laugh and pull her into his arms again, his eyes closed so the tears of his relief wouldn't fall.</p><p>~8~</p><p>It was quite…amusing, to observe the foursome as they followed Culverton Smith down the halls of the hospital. Sherlock refused to release Leena's hand, but he also wasn't in the best position to help her along given his own exhaustion. So Mary had inserted herself between them the first chance she got to give Leena a more stable support. Sherlock hadn't been pleased and, instead, moved to her other side, his arm and hand constantly twitching like he wanted to reach out for her hand but couldn't due to the sling. John just shook his head as he walked behind them, mentally trying to think of the best time to pull Leena aside and warn her about Sherlock's using. She deserved to know what he'd done.</p><p>"Where are we going now?" Sherlock demanded as they continued down a few floors.</p><p>"I want to show you my favorite room," Smith smiled.</p><p>"The mortuary?" Leena guessed, spotting the falter in Smith's step as she got it right.</p><p>Serial killers always enjoyed being able to celebrate their kills either at the location it happened or somewhere involving the body. For as well connected as Smith was, she doubted even he'd be able to hide taking bodies out of the hospital for 'no reason.' It would have to be somewhere he would have access to them. Which added to the profile she was building. For the bodies to be there, the chances were the people he'd killed were also in the hospital too, that the building was the location they happened. There were so many records of deaths in hospitals, if he wanted to hide them, that would be the place, it would be like finding a needle in a haystack for the police if they didn't know where to look or that they should even be looking in the first place. Smith might be able to go to the rooms someone died in, but he would have to do that for every single person who died, even those not his victims, for it to cover up and he was too busy to manage that. Going to the place they were all kept would mean having access whenever he happened to 'visit.' Everyday people died, so no one would be any wiser that he visited the mortuary on certain days he stopped by. It was a good cover, if you weren't looking for signs of a serial killer.</p><p>Sherlock, however, stopped short, spotting something through the open doorway of a room, "No, let's go in here," he called, moving into the room quickly, though ensuring Leena entered first before he followed, putting himself between her and Smith.</p><p>The room was a suite, a boardroom of sorts, with a white rectangular table set up in the middle of the room, three chairs on each side and one chair at each end. There was some sort of medicine bag hanging from a stand next to the chairs, with wire and needle at the end, the medicine giving off an odd glow.</p><p>"So you've had another one of your little meetings," Sherlock remarked, recalling how Faith had told him that Smith gathered people together, injected some sort of thing to make them forget what he told them about killing someone. Part of it had stuck with her, enough for her to get her notes down about it.</p><p>"Oh, it's just a monthly top-up," Smith shrugged, "Confession is good for the soul…providing you can delete it."</p><p>Mary tensed at the look Sherlock and Leena sent each other. Leena had given her what she could remember of Sherlock's utterings about Smith, something about something that made people forget what he said. She could remember him talking of a woman who managed to remember, enough that she knew someone was in danger of being killed, but not much more. She could guess where their minds had gone. If this was a monthly thing…did he tell people at every month what he'd done and who else he'd killed? HOW many people had this man murdered without anyone knowing or remembering? He seemed the sort to get off on telling people he had done something so horrible as often as he could, bragging, just as Leena said.</p><p>"What's TD12?" John asked, checking the writing on the bag.</p><p>"It's a memory inhibitor," Sherlock stated.</p><p>"Bliss," Smith nodded, not denying it.</p><p>"Bliss?" John frowned.</p><p>"Ignorance is…" Mary surmised.</p><p>"Makes the world go round," Smith smiled at her.</p><p>"Anyone ever decide to remember?" Sherlock challenged, crossing his arms.</p><p>"Some people take the drip out, yeah. Some people have the same…urges," Smith smirked, playing right into the profile, on the cusp of bragging, but managing to hold back from a full confession, which Leena knew he wouldn't do until there was no chance he'd ever be able to kill another person, "Come on," he shook his had, heading for the door, "Wasting time."</p><p>"Indeed," Sherlock glanced at his watch, "You have, I estimate, twenty minutes left," he sent Smith a smile as he stepped out the door.</p><p>"Sorry?"</p><p>"I sent a text from your phone, remember? It was read almost immediately. Factoring in a degree of shock, an emotional decision, and a journey time based on the associated address, I'd say that your life as you know it has twenty minutes left to run," he glanced at the watch once more, "Well, no, seventeen and a half, to be precise but I rounded up for dramatic effect, so please do show us the mortuary. It'll give you a chance to say goodbye."</p><p>Smith forced out a chuckle, trying to seem unaffected even if he was disturbed by the ominous warning, "Come along," and led them down the hall.</p><p>"I'm starting to think the game is on," Mary murmured to John as they followed.</p><p>"Not funny," John grumbled beside her.</p><p>Normally he knew he'd be keen to see this done, see the dangerous criminal apprehended and locked away, and he <em>was</em>. But there was just so much else going on. Mary was there, when he'd sworn <em>never</em> to let her near Sherlock again. Sherlock was on a bender. Leena had woken up and should be resting, but instead was there with them and a serial killer…god, he just wanted this to be over so he could process it all.</p><p>His therapist was going to have a field day during their next session.</p><p>It was made even worse when they were forced into the lift with Smith to go down even more floors, "Speaking of serial killers, you know who's my favorite?" Smith asked, sounding like he was trying to make conversation though they all doubted he was.</p><p>"H. H. Holmes," Leena guessed as the lift dinged and opened, refraining from smirking as the man's wide grin morphed into a glare, "You've been trying to taunt Sherwood from the start of all this mess," she answered, "You <em>would</em> only pick one that would irritate him due to the surname alone."</p><p>Smith kept quiet the whole length of the hall they travelled to get to a set of double doors at the end, striding in and calling out, "Everyone out."</p><p>It was, very clearly, just as Leena guessed, mortuary. Everything silver and chrome and white, bodies on tables and covered with sheets, morticians and autopsy specialists walking around in scrubs and disposable aprons, a wall of body freezers lined the side of the room for the bodies on ice.</p><p>"Mr. Smith, we're actually in the middle of something," one of the doctors spoke.</p><p>"Saheed, isn't it?" Smith eyed the man, "How long have you been working here now?"</p><p>"Four years," the man answered.</p><p>"Four years. Well, that's a long time, isn't it? Four years…"</p><p>"He's definitely adept at discomfort," Leena muttered to Sherlock as he moved to lean against the freezers and take a much needed breath while Smith was distracted.</p><p>"Ok, everyone," Saheed called out, eager to get out of there, the others going with him, "Five minutes?" he asked Smith.</p><p>"Come back in ten," Smith shrugged, before gesturing them out, "Saheed!" he called when the man reached the door, "This time, <em>knock</em>."</p><p>The foursome exchanged glances at that, not wanting to imagine what Saheed had walked in on before. Though it certainly added to the profile and confirmed Leena's remarks about wanting to be in control and not caring about other people.</p><p>"How can you do that?" John asked as soon as they were alone, "I mean, how…<em>how</em> are you even allowed in here?"</p><p>"Oh, I can go anywhere I like," Smith smiled, pulling out a ring of keys from his pocket, "Anywhere at all."</p><p>"They gave you keys?" Mary grimaced at the sight, thinking about how unethical that was to have a non-medical professional having access to everything.</p><p>"They presented 'em to me. There was a ceremony. You can watch that on YouTube. Home Secretary was there," he chuckled, watching Sherlock absently examining the cabinets, "You were right, Mrs. Holmes," he winked at Leena, nearly leering at her, "My favorite room. What d'you think?"</p><p>"Tough crowd," Sherlock remarked, turning around, trying to draw Smith's attention away from his wife.</p><p>"Oh, I don't know," Smith shrugged, wandering over to a body lying on the table, pulling the sheet back to reveal the autopsy had begun, "No, I've always found 'em quite pliable," he reached out to the elderly woman's corpse and tugged her jaw open.</p><p>"I won't ask if you have any respect," Leena remarked, moving her good arm across her to grip her other one, like she was crossing her arms, "It's in the profile, isn't it?"</p><p>Smith sniffed deeply and let go of the woman's jaw, turning to face them, "H. H. Holmes loved the dead. He mass-produced 'em!"</p><p>"He was a serial killer, active during the Chicago Fair," Leena told John and Mary.</p><p>"D'you know what he did?" Smith began, eager.</p><p>"He built a hotel designed so he could kill people," Leena cut in.</p><p>One way to deal with a serial killer, cut off their power, have their plans go wrong, and, <em>very carefully</em>, challenge them, turn the focus from their targets to the ones making the challenge and then prepare to catch them in the act. She wished her BAU team could be there though, it was always better to deal with serial killers when there was a larger group trained to handle them. Sherlock could adapt, she was sure, she'd spoken enough of it over the years, but John and Mary were wild cards in this.</p><p>"Had a hanging room, gas chamber, specially adapted furnace," Smith sighed, as though just picturing what fun he could have had there, "You know, like Sweeney Todd without the pies! Stupid," he scoffed after a moment, "So stupid."</p><p>"Why stupid?" Mary asked, hoping that the man would let something slip that would help Sherlock and Leena work out how to stop him. She was good with plans and running, with following a plan and instruction. But this was what <em>they</em> did for a living, if they wanted her part of the plan she'd do whatever they needed her to do to stop this lunatic. And, maybe, a little bit to prove to John that his worry was sweet but she could handle herself just fine, and if she got hurt it would be on HER, not on Sherlock or Leena or even him.</p><p>"Well, all that effort," Smith remarked, "You don't build a beach if you want to hide a pebble; you just find a beach! And if you wanna hide a murder, or wanna hide lots and lots of murders, just find a…hospital."</p><p>John frowned, "Can we be clear? Are you confessing?"</p><p>"To what?"</p><p>"The way you're talking…" he stopped and glanced at Sherlock and Leena for confirmation that this was what was happening, but they were too quiet…</p><p>Smith, though, laughed, "Oh, sorry. Yes. You mean, am I a serial killer, or am I just trying to mess with your funny little head? Well, it's true," he moved around the table to step closer to them, "I <em>do</em> like to mess with people and yes, I am a bit creepy, but that's just my U.S.P.. I use it to sell breakfast cereal. But am I what he says I am?" he pointed at Sherlock, who was now gripping Leena's free hand, though none of the others had seen him move to take it due to his own tremors, "Is that what you're asking?"</p><p>"Yes," John stated.</p><p>"Hm. Well, let me ask you this," he turned to face John now, "Are you really a doctor?"</p><p>"Yeah, of course I am."</p><p>"Well, no, a medical doctor, you know. Not just feet, or media studies or something."</p><p>"I'm a doctor."</p><p>He snorted, "Are you serious? No, really, <em>are</em> you?" and then grew quite angry, "Are you…are you actually <em>serious</em>?" and turned to step back, "I've played along with this joke. It's not funny anymore. No…look at him," he gestured at Sherlock, the man standing there, too rigid to not be trying to hide something he didn't want others to see, the grip on Leena's hands now white, his eyes blinking rapidly and his face frozen though there was a pain in his eyes.</p><p>Leena, to her credit, only gripped his hand tighter. He needed sleep, he needed rest and food. She'd seen him go without both before and he'd had such a terrible headache she'd actually taken him to the hospital because she'd thought he was having a brain aneurism. To know he had gone <em>weeks</em> in such a state, without anyone to force water and food down his throat if they had to…</p><p>His skull must feel like it was splitting open, he was hurting, <em>badly</em>.</p><p>"Go ahead," Smith taunted, "Look at him, Doctor Watson! Hmm? Oh, no, I'll lay it out for you. There are two possible explanations for what's going on 'ere," he pointed at himself, "Either I'm a serial killer…or Sherlock Holmes is off his tits on drugs, hmm?" he pointed an accusing finger at Sherlock, "Delusional paranoia about a public personality? That's not so special. It's not even <em>new</em>!"</p><p>Mary caught Leena's eyes, her own widening as she finally understood why Leena had asked her to procure blood from a druggie, why she'd even thought to really have John believe that Sherlock was on drugs. Yes, part of it was to keep John at his side, part of it was because Sherlock WAS in such a bad state that he could collapse any time and need a doctor. But there was another part to it.</p><p>This was just like with Magnussen!</p><p>By making Sherlock seem drugged to everyone else, by having JOHN there ACTING like Sherlock was on drugs, it allowed him to get close enough to the target, for the target to feel like he wasn't a threat because he was nonsense, when Sherlock was really sharper than ever. And then, when the target tried to claim it was drugs, Sherlock would have proof he'd been clean the whole time and therefore the target was now making excuses and looking worse than before.</p><p>The only problem with all that…was that Sherlock <em>wasn't</em> sharper than ever now.</p><p>She had tried like hell to get him to eat, bringing him food from the cafeteria when he came to visit Leena, it was always there, untouched when she came back around before she'd leave for the day. Mrs. Hudson had kept her up-to-date on the state of their kitchen, the rotting food, where the only thing digestible was the baby formula for Liberty and the coffee machine whirring at all hours. Sherlock was running on fumes and it was hitting him worse than ever <em>right now</em>.</p><p>Oh, it would only play into Smith and John's belief that he was on drugs, but it would also put Sherlock in danger of missing something, making a mistake.</p><p>They would need to proceed VERY carefully.</p><p>"I think you need to, er, tell your faithful little friend how you're wasting his time because you're too high to know what's real anymore," Smith stalked towards Sherlock, "Or, better yet, why not ell your dear little wife how you've gone off the deep end while she was sleeping?"</p><p>"Oh, I'm sorry," Leena eyed the man, "Were you under the impression that I <em>don't</em> know my husband?"</p><p>Sherlock's lip quirked up, the throbbing in his mind dulling just long enough for a thought to get through to him, "I apologize," he added, startling Smith, "I've miscalculated," and turned to Leena as though to explain, "I forgot to factor in the traffic!"</p><p>"You're getting slow in your old age, Sherwood," Leena teased, ignoring the deep frown John was sending her as she'd all but admitted she 'knew Sherlock was on drugs.'</p><p>He laughed, looking at his watch, "Nineteen and a half minutes," and cleared his throat, putting a hand to his ear to listen for something, "Ah, the footsteps you're about to hear will be very familiar to you, not least because there'll be three impacts rather than two. The third, of course, will be the end of a walking cane. Your daughter Faith's walking cane."</p><p>Smith frowned, stepping back, "And why would she be here?"</p><p>"You invited her," Sherlock told him, "You sent her a text or, technically, <em>I</em> sent her a text but she's not to know. Ah, let's see if I can recall, I don't have my wife's memory with the written word. 'Faith...I can stand it no longer, I've confessed to my crimes. Please forgive me!'"</p><p>"Why would that have any effect?" Smith smirked, "You don't know her."</p><p>"Oh, but I do," Sherlock's answering smirk was devious, "I spent a whole evening with her," he turned to Leena as though to reassure her, "We had chips," he stated, before tracing a line from the base of his wrist upwards two inches, subtly telling her why, the suicidal nature of the woman.</p><p>Smith's grin started to falter as he shook his head, "You don't know Faith. You simply do not."</p><p>"I know you care about her deeply. I know you invited her to one of your special board meetings. You care what she thinks. You maintain an impressive façade. I think it's about to break. She came to Baker Street."</p><p>"No, she didn't."</p><p>"She came to see me because she was scared of her daddy."</p><p>"Never happened," Smith insisted, "Is this another one of your drug-fueled fantasies?"</p><p>Mary began to smirk, knowing it <em>had</em> to be true, because Sherlock <em>wasn't</em> on drugs.</p><p>"Well, let's see, shall we?" Sherlock challenged, before calling out, "Faith, stop loitering at the door and come in! This is your father's favorite room," the door opened and he could hear the sounds of Faith entering, "Come and meet his best friends."</p><p>"Dad?" Faith called, and something about it made Sherlock frown, "What's happening? What was that text? Are you having one of your jokes?" she walked over to the man's side and turned to the four of them, though Sherlock and Leena were right in front of her, "Who are you?"</p><p>Sherlock frowned at the sight of the woman…because it was NOT Faith, or at least not the one who had come to the flat for help. Their height and size were the same, same style and length of hair, though there was a slight difference in shading and the glasses were only similar not identical. There was a different set to the hairline, a different mouth, a differing pattern on the walking stick.</p><p>"Who the hell are you?" Sherlock demanded.</p><p>"Sherlock Holmes!" Smith answered his daughter first, "Surely you recognize him."</p><p>"Oh my God!" Faith laughed, smiling, "Sherlock Holmes! I love your blog."</p><p>"You're not her," Sherlock realized, "You're not the woman who came to Baker Street."</p><p>"Um, well, no. Never been there."</p><p>"Sorry, I'm not sure I completely understand…" Sherlock trailed away, stepping forward, looking between Faith and Smith.</p><p>"Understand what?"</p><p>Smith looked far too smug, "Well, I thought you two were old friends!"</p><p>"No!" Faith giggled, "We've never met."</p><p>"Oh, dear!" Smith began to chuckle, even more pleased, "Oh!"</p><p>"Have we?" Faith turned to Sherlock.</p><p>"Sherwood…" Leena began, seeing the look on his face, like something was truly, <em>very</em> wrong, like there was a problem he wasn't working through, a lie in front of his face and he didn't know which it was.</p><p>"So who came to the flat?" Sherlock breathed.</p><p>"Well, it wasn't me," Faith spoke, and Smith's laughter grew stronger.</p><p>Sherlock stumbled forward, moving off to the side, his hand resting on a tray that had some medical equipment on it. John watched him closely, a deep frown on his face, while Mary hurried over to Leena's side.</p><p>"What's happening?" Mary whispered to Leena, able to tell something had gone wrong.</p><p>"Someone tricked him," Leena realized, working through Sherlock's mumblings, his shock, "They came to the flat to implicate Smith, but it was someone pretending to be Faith."</p><p>Sherlock scrunched his eyes shut, the throbbing in his head twice as bad now, Smith's laughing not making it better.</p><p>"I'm sorry, Mr. Holmes," Faith chuckled, "But I don't think I've ever been anywhere near your flat."</p><p>"If he doesn't stop laughing…" Leena threatened as Smith practically roared with it, Sherlock stumbling back with his hands over his face. She tried to take a step towards him but Mary held her back.</p><p>"Best not, Jackie," Mary waned, and the look in her eye told Leena that the woman was worried something bad was about to happen, "Just let him calm down first..."</p><p>"He won't calm down if I don't help him!" she insisted, "He's not going to hurt me," she tried to pull away, but after her stay in the hospital and her bad arm, Mary was able to keep a grip on her.</p><p>"God," Sherlock mumbled, angrily fisting at his hair, his eyes closed, all the while Smith continued to cackle, until Sherlock turned, bumping into a tray on a stand, nearly cutting himself on the six scalpels resting there. He stared at them, his mind racing.</p><p>Faith wasn't Faith, fine. But Smith was still a serial killer, Leena's profile had proven it, and he still needed to be stopped. This...this entire situation happening right now was not going to help him get a confession, not with THIS Faith standing there. He...he had to get Smith alone...</p><p>And there was only one way he could think to do it, especially since half the room thought he was drugged up...</p><p>"Sherlock…" John began, taking a step towards him, but Sherlock looked pale, ill, like he was about to be sick, "Sherlock? Are you alright? Sherlock, are you ok?" he looked over to Mary and Leena, but Leena's eyes were on Sherlock not him.</p><p>"Watch him," Sherlock panted, turning and pointing at Smith, "He's got a <em>knife</em>."</p><p>That only served to make Smith laugh harder, "I've got a what?!"</p><p>"You've got a <em>scalpel</em>!" Sherlock accused, which made Leena frown and tilt her head, catching something, "You picked it up from that table," he pointed to the tray, only five scalpels remained, "I saw you take it."</p><p>"I certainly did not!"</p><p>"Mary," Leena grabbed Mary's arm now, turning to her, "Don't let John hurt him too badly."</p><p>Mary frowned, lost, "What…"</p><p>"Look behind his back!" Sherlock continued to accuse.</p><p>Smith merely held out both his hands, nothing in them, "What?"</p><p>Sherlock grew more hysterical at the sight, "I <em>saw</em> you take it! I saw you!" he threw out his right arm at Smith, the missing scalpel in his own hand, brandishing it convincingly enough that Smith's smile finally dropped and he backed away.</p><p>"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Smith held his hands up, pulling Faith back away from him.</p><p>"Sherlock!" John tried to get through to him, "D'you wanna put that down?"</p><p>Sherlock looked down at the scalpel as though he'd never seen one before, and then glared at Smith, "Stop laughing at me!" he hissed.</p><p>"I'm not laughing!" Smith assured him.</p><p>"He's not laughing, Sherlock!" John agreed.</p><p>But Sherlock ignored him, "STOP LAUGHING AT ME!" he yelled, lunging towards Smith with the scalpel.</p><p>Only for John to rush into the way with a shout of "Sherlock!" and grab his wrist, twisting it and turning it, slamming it on the side of an examination table till he dropped it. He grabbed Sherlock by the lapels of his coat and shoved him back till his back slammed against the body cabinets, "Stop it!" he shouted as Sherlock continued to struggle, a firm punch to the face had Sherlock falling to the ground.</p><p>"Mary!" Leena urged the woman, who was so startled to see John take such action, that she jumped out of her shock and ran to pull John off before the two orderlies she could see through the door windows made it to the room.</p><p>"Is this a game?" John shouted, trying hard to hit Sherlock again, clearly of the mind that this was all a drug induced break, but Mary succeeded in yanking him back.</p><p>"John, stop it!" Mary called, pulling him far enough away that Leena, now free, ran over to Sherlock, dropping to her knees before him and reaching out with a hand to touch his face, ignoring John's calls of warning behind her, tilting his head up to look at him, her thumb tracing just under the spilt in his lip.</p><p>"Thank you, Doctor Watson," Smith spoke behind her, though she didn't pay the man any mind, "But I don't think he's a danger anymore. Leave him be."</p><p>"Oh, Sherwood..." she murmured, wincing as blood began to fall from his nose from the force of John's punch.</p><p>John pulled himself out of Mary's hold, glaring at Sherlock, "Jackie, leave him," he urged, "He's been using again," he blurted, flinching as that wasn't how he'd wanted to tell her, with an audience, but Smith had already implied the man was on some sort of drug already, he'd just confirmed it.</p><p>"I know my husband, John," Leena shot back, without turning to face him. Whether they took her words to be a denial or refusal, or a grim acceptance that she could clearly tell something was wrong, she didn't care because Sherlock was looking at her with wide eyes locked onto her own, panting, seeming genuinely <em>frightened</em>, though she knew it was <em>not</em> of the situation nor of what just happened, but what she would <em>think</em> of it.</p><p>With her back to the others, she sent him a wink that had him slumping forward into her arms, sobbing in a way she knew was just for dramatic effect.</p><p>She had known Sherlock Holmes long enough to know when he was laying a trap, even if she wasn't fully sure what it might be, even one as hastily put together as this was.</p><p>She just had to play the role of concerned wife to seal it.</p><p>~8~</p><p>"Oh, Sherwood," Leena murmured as she sat at his bedside now, holding his hand as he had done constantly for her during his visits the last month. The roles were reversed and now HE was the one lying in a hospital bed and not her, at least he was awake, "You're taking this a bit farther than with Charlie, aren't you?"</p><p>He offered her a weak smirk, "This one's more important," he squeezed her hand, lifting it to press a kiss to the back of it, "Magnussen was after Mary, this one is a threat to YOU."</p><p>She gave him a soft smile, shaking her head, "Well, at least we know he won't press charges," she remarked dryly.</p><p>It fit the profile. Smith would want to continue to appear magnanimous and the victim in all this. Pitying Sherlock and 'trying to help him' would cast more doubts about his life as a 'serial killer' than having to explain anything about what actually happened.</p><p>"The police report will help though," Sherlock mused. John and Mary had been taken in for questioning by Lestrade after the authorities were called by hospital security. The only reason Leena wasn't was due to her status as his spouse, "John will, no doubt, bring up the drugs."</p><p>Leena's own smile grew weak and sad at the look he gave her, "I asked Mary to do that," she admitted, though she had a feeling he'd worked it out by now, "Partly to help you get closer to Smith, partly because…" she took a breath, "John would be more likely to stick with you and I knew you'd be in a bad enough state for him to genuinely worry."</p><p>If John acted like Sherlock was on drugs, Smith would likely believe it without needing to test the man for proof, it would allow Sherlock closer.</p><p>Sherlock scoffed, touching his split lip, "Yes, quite worried."</p><p>"Let's call that residual from faking your death," Leena chuckled.</p><p>"I think it's more in defense of your honor," Sherlock remarked, "About time," he made a jest, "I shoot someone in the head for Mary, the <em>least</em> John could do was punch someone he thought was a threat to you for you."</p><p>"Except you're not a threat to me."</p><p>"He didn't know that."</p><p>"You would <em>never</em> hurt me, Locksley, not after what happened when you cleaned up."</p><p>Sherlock fell silent, "…I didn't…" he struggled to find the words, "I didn't…alarm you, did I?"</p><p>He'd never forgive himself if he'd genuinely frightened her with his acting in the mortuary, as haphazard and thrown together as it had been.</p><p>She snorted, "You called a <em>scalpel</em> a <em>knife</em>, you'd <em>never</em> call a scalpel a knife," she gave him a look, "I knew right then that you were going to do something with the scalpel, that you'd probably try to 'attack' him," oh dear, it was quite difficult to use quotey fingers with just one hand, "That you were faking the rest of it."</p><p>"God, I love you," he murmured, looking at her in a besotted manner he only allowed for when they were alone.</p><p>"I have twenty plus years learning how you think," she reminded him, and it was sort of her job to know how people thought, though she grew a bit sad at the next part, "I'm one of the few who have seen you like this too," she reminded him. One poor roommate of his in university who had had to experience Sherlock living off caffeine during their end of year exams...she was fairly certain the poor sod had transferred schools to get away from Sherlock, "So I know how you think when you're barely sleeping but pushing on. You needed to get as close to Smith as you could. You might even need to get to a place where he felt he had the power and upper hand so he'd confess," she looked around the hospital room, "Confined to his own hospital where he's in charge of what happens to you? Can't get any closer than that."</p><p>Sherlock took a deep breath, letting it out through his nose at her insight, even if she didn't sound pleased about it, "Thank you for telling Mary not to let John beat me to death."</p><p>She snorted again, something she was starting to think he was intentionally doing, saying things to get her to snort, "He wouldn't have beaten you to death."</p><p>"He seemed ready to."</p><p>"I would have run him over with an exam table if I had to," she looked at him, "No one harms my family. Not even my family."</p><p>He smiled at her, about to speak more when the door opened and Mary peeked through, giving them an apologetic smile, "Sorry, um…Mycroft's being a pain in the ass," both Leena and Sherlock rolled their eyes at that, which made her chuckle, "He wants John to escort you to 221B, Jacks."</p><p>"Well Mycroft can go and…" Leena began, but Sherlock chuckled.</p><p>"Go," he whispered to her, smiling at her, "Liberty misses you terribly."</p><p>Leena let out a sharp breath at the mention of their daughter, nodding slightly, she missed Liberty quite terribly too. Damn the bastard knowing exactly what to dangle in front of her to get her to pry herself away from him, "You'll be alright?"</p><p>He nodded, "I'm in a hospital," he remarked, giving her a meaningful look that she caught.</p><p>"Well then," she turned into a small bag she'd brought with her, that had been hanging off the back of her wheelchair earlier, and pulled out a small stuffed teddy bear that was holding a heart which said 'Get Well Soon!' on it and held it up to him, "A gift from your girls," she teased, setting it on his bedside, "You had best do as it says," she warned, standing, "And get well soon, I don't want to miss you terribly too."</p><p>He nodded, understanding that she wanted him back with her as soon as possible, "I will," he promised.</p><p>"Your latest vow," she teased, leaning over to press a kiss to his lips and then his forehead, before she headed to the door where Mary was waiting, stepping to the side to allow Nurse Cornish into the room as she came to check on the hospital's most famous patient, nodding to the guard assigned to the door as she passed.</p><p>Mary, at least, had the sensibleness to wait till they had walked a far enough distance away to bring up, "You had that bear with you when you arrived," she remarked, the question present even in the statement.</p><p>Leena gave her a look, "I did."</p><p>Mary's eyes narrowed and she shook her head, "You <em>planned</em> this," she realized, "But…HOW? You were in a coma and Sherlock didn't know you'd woken up and…"</p><p>Leena laughed, "I didn't plan all of it, I'm not sure I even know half of it," she assured the woman, it was just fun to tease people at times, "It's just...I've known Sherwood more than twenty years, Mary. I know how he thinks, I get paid to know how people think. I'd be a rubbish profiler, an even worse wife of the great Sherlock Holmes, if I didn't work out he'd do <em>anything</em> to get close enough to Smith for a confession."</p><p>She'd been a bit wrong in terms of HOW he'd go about getting it. She had the bear with her for a reason, to leave it in his hospital room with him. Smith was a tricky bloke, serial killers often were, and one had to be careful when handling them. Most times they never really just revealed and confessed to anything, not when they could keep going, when they were in a place to continue their killings, they'd never give it up and, therefore, would refrain from confessing anything until that option was taken away and they were caught in the act of one.</p><p>It could be done, prying a confession from one, even going so far as to orchestrate who their next victim would be, to lay a trap. They always thought they were so clever, to be one step ahead. Smith was NEVER going to confess in the mortuary, not with her and Mary and John there, even less when Faith arrived. She doubted Sherlock had even bided his time in the hopes the man would do it. It didn't fit the profile for Smith to just blurt it and be caught. And Sherlock was not a stupid man.</p><p>If anything, she would have guessed that Sherlock's ultimate plan would have been to just be around Smith, get John to realize the man WAS a danger, and then collapse at some point. John would think it was drugs, Smith would have him committed to the hospital to 'help' him. It wouldn't have been hard to play off either, Sherlock wasn't well from all the stress to begin with. It was Faith that had thrown a spanner in it all. Sherlock HAD genuinely been startled to see a woman who was not the one he thought she was standing there.</p><p>He hadn't wanted to be wrong in front of John, she knew. It would just prove to the man that he could get things wrong, and that he couldn't keep his promise to protect people if he got it wrong. He hadn't been faking his reaction to that shock, not when he was running on fumes as he was. Had he been full of food and sleep and put together, he'd have held together far better, found a way to play it off, maybe even accused Faith of hiring someone to portray her out of fear for her father. But he wasn't at his best right now.</p><p>He'd needed to improvise a way to still get Smith to see him as weak, without John assuming he himself was wrong, and get everyone 'worried' about him.</p><p>Grab a 'knife' and start threatening people and it would look like a mental break from the drugs, a bad trip. It would make Smith overconfident, more than him being wrong about Faith would, and sure that Sherlock wasn't a threat to him or his secret. But it would also make John feel that it was the drugs fault he'd been wrong and not his own mental capabilities.</p><p>It had achieved the same end, him ending up under Smith's 'care' and in a hospital bed, she just hadn't thought it would go quite this way. Sherlock DID love to keep her on her toes.</p><p>Right now he needed a confession after the 'drug accusation' that would be going around. People wouldn't believe the rantings of a drugged mind, but they'd take a confession straight from the horse's mouth.</p><p>"Let's hope he gets it," Mary murmured.</p><p>~8~</p><p>It was just John and Leena in the car on the way to the flat, Mary insisting on calling a cab and heading to check on Hamish and relieve her friend Janine from babysitting duties. That and she'd not so subtly implied that John might need to speak to Leena.</p><p>"You should have tried to get him to wear the hat," Leena remarked, seeing John struggling with finding words to put to his thoughts and trying to break the ice.</p><p>John snorted, "He wouldn't wear it unless you were there in your cat-hat," his smile faded, "You weren't there."</p><p>"No, I wasn't."</p><p>"I wasn't either," John admitted, looking down and taking a breath, "I...I haven't been for over a month now."</p><p>"That was sort of obvious," Leena remarked and he looked at her, startled, "Mary told me. But even if she hadn't…" she let out a breath and closed her eyes, "Sherwood was certainly in a state," she looked at him, "He doesn't do well when he's left alone."</p><p>Even when she'd been in America, they constantly texted and called and emailed and video chatted. She was always checking in on him.</p><p>John's jaw clenched, "It's no excuse to turn to drugs."</p><p>Leena tilted her head more, "Always so keen to jump to that."</p><p>"I <em>saw</em> the tests, Jackie," John told her, "I had Mary AND Molly test him. He's…he's gone off, he's using. I'm sorry. But it's <em>bad</em>, worse than maybe it's ever been and…"</p><p>"And blood is far easier to procure than urine," Leena cut in.</p><p>John fell silent, gaping at her…because he hadn't said anything about it being <em>bloodwork</em> that had been run on Sherlock, especially when, last time, it had been urine samples.</p><p>"Mary told you…"</p><p>"Mary's the one who swapped it <em>for me</em>," Leena told him gently, "I asked for a favor," she gave him a look, "Do you <em>really</em> think Mary would have any reason to swap it if I hadn't asked?"</p><p>John did quite the impersonation of a fish at her admission, because Mary really wouldn't have. She may have been pushing him to check on Sherlock because she was worried he'd turned to drugs, but that was just to get him to speak to the man, to see him, there wouldn't have been any reason to really push it that far, "Why?"</p><p>"Would you have been as keen to help him if it was just sleep deprivation?"</p><p>John stared at her, "IS it?"</p><p>"John, I don't know how many times I can say it before anyone believes me, but Sherlock will never, <em>ever</em> touch a drug again, whether I'm here or not," she looked directly into his eyes to be sure he believed her, "He wouldn't do that to my memory if I wasn't. He wouldn't make my life meaningless or my support worthless by doing it. And especially not when <em>our daughter</em> needed him."</p><p>John swallowed hard and had to look away.</p><p>It made sense to him now, now that he was looking at Sherlock without the lens of drug user as a filter. The bags under his eyes, the way his attention drifted and struggled, the stale coffee smell he got each time the man spoke…the way his clothing hung off him, the stubble and lack of hygiene. It wasn't drug use, it was a man running on next to nothing.</p><p>They all just…kept thinking the worst of him.</p><p>And Leena, even while in a coma, still thought the best.</p><p>"I'm sorry," he breathed, his hands clenching into fists on his knees, his eyes squeezed tight, knowing he'd broken a promise to himself as well, to trust the man more in that regard, "I should have been there more."</p><p>"But you're angry and scared," Leena assessed, smiling when he looked at her, a little started at the 'scared' part, "I'm a profiler, John. I'm meant to get inside your head. After everything that happened with Mary and AGRA and Hamish and Magnussen…all the danger that Sherlock gets into. This was the first time Mary really came with us on a case," she recalled, "And she was the target as far as we knew. She was in danger, and Sherlock promised to protect her, I did too. We failed, because AJ found her because of us. You couldn't risk us failing again."</p><p>John's jaw clenched, "You got shot, Jackie," he said, his voice so quiet she was sure she would have missed it had it not been the two of them in the car.</p><p>"And it could have been Mary," Leena finished for him, "It 'should have' been Mary," her tone implied it <em>never</em> would be, only referenced back to Mary being the target, "It never would have been," she added, in case it hadn't been clear, "She told you we gave her the bulletproof vest, yeah?" he nodded, "We wouldn't take that risk, not with her life, or yours or Hamish," she reached out when he fell silent, putting her good hand on his curled up fist, "I know you don't think I can relate, because I knew Sherlock was still alive during that whole mess. But John, I didn't, not always. There were days, weeks, <em>months</em>, where there was no trace of him and I…I honestly thought he'd died and I'd have no way to really <em>know</em>. So…if you ever need to talk, I'm here."</p><p>John looked over at her again, tears in his eyes now as she saw straight through him.</p><p>Her smile was gentle, "Mary left, and you didn't know if she was alive or dead or if someone stole the memory stick. She was a target of someone truly willing to kill her and not just pressure her. Every second of every day you were afraid if that would be the moment she died. And then she comes back, and she's safe, and then she almost dies, really almost dies…" she knew, without him saying it, that he had seen Mary in that pool of blood and not HER, "You just want her safe, because you're so scared she could die and leave you again. I understand that."</p><p>She really did. And that, she felt, was why she couldn't rage at him or shame him for his choices. If this had happened in the reverse, just after Sherlock 'returned from the dead' and she nearly lost him and it was John's fault...she honestly felt she would have done something similar. She just...she knew what it felt like to come so close to losing something and want to protect it. John didn't need more people telling him he was wrong or trying to guilt him, he just needed to know what he felt was valid, but that sometimes holding onto that initial reaction could hurt him in the long run.</p><p>"I've had nightmare after nightmare of Sherlock dying, of not being able to protect him…"</p><p>She trailed off a moment and, perhaps for the first time, John realized that she really HAD. That she'd likely had hundreds of them especially after Mary shot him. She'd gotten the man a bulletproof vest as if it wasn't sign enough of just how much it had terrified her to lose her husband…</p><p>And she'd still helped.</p><p>Mary had shot her husband and nearly killed him…and Leena still helped protect her.</p><p>Meanwhile, his wife hadn't been shot, hadn't nearly died…and he'd cut all ties with them.</p><p>God, what had he done?</p><p>"I just mean," Leena continued, noticing the emotions flashing across his face but not calling out about it, "I've been there, with that fear. So if you need to talk…I mean, this last month I was a very good listener apparently…"</p><p>John managed a watery laugh at that, turning to put his other hand on top of hers, "Thank you, Jackie."</p><p>She smiled, "Anything for family."</p><p>John sniffled, nodding, "Anything," he promised, squeezing her hand, truly promising it.</p><p>He'd find some way to make it up to Sherlock, he'd find a way to be there, to push past his fears over losing Mary. He already had a therapist lined up, might as well talk about <em>that</em> than whether or not to be friends with Sherlock, because the answer always would have been yes, no matter what.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Sherlock did his best to exercise patience as he waited for Nurse Cornish to finish setting up his latest drip for him, pretending to have fallen asleep due to his injuries and natural exhaustion, though he implemented every trick he could think of to remain awake and not actually fall asleep. All those weeks of caffeine and adrenaline and his body should be about to give out, but his own adrenaline was kicking up. He was <em>so close</em> to stopping this, to finishing it, he couldn't risk falling asleep now.</p><p>A sweet story to the nurse about his wife and his history with drugs he fought so hard to crawl out of, a bit of a tear and a quiver of the lip, and the woman was kind enough to swap out one of the drips for him without a word to anyone else.</p><p>Gotta love fans of his blog.</p><p>His eye twitched a few seconds after the nurse left the room, hearing a swooshing noise, faint, easily ignorable…had it not been for the fact that the mental blueprints he'd brought up for the room told him it was the secret door at the end of the wood-paneled wall swinging open. Really, as though he'd just enter a building a serial killer basically built himself <em>without</em> looking at every single blueprint? Please.</p><p>The footsteps drawing nearer to the bed were familiar enough after paying attention to know it was Smith. There had been a faint squeak noise, like rubber rubbing on something, telling him the man was wearing gloves as he pushed the door shut. He could hear the man grabbing a chair from a nearby table and carrying it over, setting it down at the foot of the bed and waiting.</p><p>Sherlock only barely managed to refrain from smirking, he'd already calculated how long the man's patience could run for in a devised situation like this and he needed every last second of it to ensure he got what he needed.</p><p>Let the man wait, he was comfortable where he was.</p><p>~8~</p><p>"I'm starting to think Sherwood should retitle Mycroft from BomE to PimA," Leena muttered as she and John got out of the black car Mycroft had sent to pick them up and headed into 221B. John snorted at that, guessing what PimA stood for, and held the door open for her to enter.</p><p>Instead of heading for the stairs, Leena turned into Mrs. Hudson's section of the house, peering into the woman's sitting room and smiling, letting out a soft breath when she saw the woman napping with a book open on her lap, Liberty set up in her little carry cot, napping too. As much as she missed her daughter and wanted to cuddle her and look at how big she'd gotten and lament about the time she'd missed…she had learned never ever wake a sleeping baby from her friends in America. And, right now, she was quite sure a shouting match was about to happen upstairs and she'd rather Liberty be sleeping soundly down there with Mrs. Hudson than exposed to that.</p><p>She swallowed hard and pulled back, closing the door gently, wiping under her eyes as John studiously ignored the motion for her benefit, and headed up the stairs. John kept behind her incase she lost her balance, until they reached the flat.</p><p>"Where <em>are</em> they?" Mycroft huffed, "It shouldn't take them this long to…" he cut himself off as the door opened and Leena and John entered.</p><p>Leena could have almost sworn she might have seen a glimmer of relief across Mycroft's face when he spotted her, though she was sure she'd imagined it. Right now, she was too angry with the man to give any thought that he might be happy to see her.</p><p>Because all across the flat, things were being torn apart and dug into by a team Mycroft had clearly employed. She knew, without a doubt, that the flat wasn't as disorganized and chaotic just because of the search and filed it away for things she'd have to check up on Sherlock over as he really had lost quite a bit of himself in the last month if the flat got that bad. She always joked that his room reflected his mind, organized chaos…this was just plain chaos.</p><p>Regardless of that, she was starting to fume because she knew what sort of search this was without a word spoken.</p><p>John, who was more than a little startled at the state of everything and feeling even more guilt settle on him (because, really, even if he hadn't SEEN Sherlock, just seeing the state of the flat would have tipped him off that the man was suffering), didn't seem to work that out quite as quickly, "Uh, uh, what are you doing?"</p><p>"Have you noticed the kitchen?" Mycroft asked instead, pointing his umbrella at it, "It's practically a meth lab. I'm trying to establish exactly what drove Sherlock off the rails."</p><p>Leena knew he didn't mean what event, but what 'drug' in particular, and glared at him for it, turning to move through the plastic draping in front of the kitchen, into the space, examining the equipment set up and rolled her eyes. She walked over to a clipboard lying on the counter where Sherlock always kept his notes on any experiment he was doing, and pushed her way back to the sitting room.</p><p>Mycroft eyed her, as John looked around at all the clippings and photos of Smith hanging everywhere with knife holes and bullet holes in them, "Any ideas?" he nearly sneered at Leena, only the sight of her injury keeping him from gloating about Sherlock slipping this time.</p><p>Leena gave him an unimpressed look, "Nothing."</p><p>"Are these spooks?" John asked, getting it now, seeing the people going through the bookshelf, "Uh, are you using spooks now to look after your family?"</p><p>"They're glorified maids by now," Leena remarked, "Tidying up," she turned her eye on Mycroft, "I'm going to have to go through all of this all over again and set it to rights," she warned him, "If you've messed up Sherwood's sock index again…"</p><p>"Jackie," Mycroft cut in, giving her a firm look.</p><p>Which she shot right back at him, though far more narrow-eyed, "You know, for someone who keeps claiming to be 'the smart one' you're remarkably dim," she shoved the clipboard at him.</p><p>Mycroft looked down at it and frowned.</p><p>"What's that?" John asked.</p><p>Leena sighed, moving to sit in Sherlock's armchair, drawing John's attention to the copious amounts of teacups set about it, all rimmed brown with coffee stains, "I hate pills," Leena told him, "I can't stand the thought of injections ever since…" she trailed off but both men knew she was thinking about Sherlock's past drug use, "Sherwood was experimenting to try and find a liquid anticoagulant I could put in my drink instead of have to swallow or inject. One he could make here instead of rely on the chemist, because it can easily be switched for poison," she would have rolled her eyes at how dramatic and paranoid he could be if she wasn't so furious with Mycroft right now.</p><p>Really, it was so simple if Mycroft had just thought to LOOK at the damn notes! It wasn't a meth lab for god's sake!</p><p>John looked at Mycroft whose pursed lips told him Leena was telling the truth.</p><p>"I'm going to be on blood thinners for a while," she sighed, throwing a clot would do that to a person, "Sherwood was trying to prepare for when I woke up. And…don't you dare go in there!" she snapped at one of the spooks who was moving towards where the second bedroom, the nursery was. She was on her feet and striding over, but the man had ignored her, throwing open the door and just…stopping in shock.</p><p>John, who had been standing nearby, looked over and blinked…the nursery, compared to the rest of the flat, was <em>pristine</em>. It was organized and clean and smelled like lavender, fully stocked…</p><p>John felt like someone had punched him in the gut, for as much as Sherlock had let himself go…he'd made sure to take the best care of Liberty. By himself. Because the girl's godparents weren't there to help.</p><p>Leena shot the spook a glare and reached past him to slam the door shut, "Mycroft…" she began, her voice dead calm, eerily flat, "If you are about to suggest that your brother would hide drugs in <em>our daughter's room</em>…I really <em>will</em> smoother you with a pillow."</p><p>Mycroft actually looked alarmed by that, taking a step back, knowing she really meant it this time. Perhaps he had taken it a bit far this time. He cleared his throat and looked around, feeling…not quite as smart as he liked to claim, because the spooks had been going at the flat for an hour and found nothing but rubbish and a cupboard full of ground coffee. There were no drugs in that flat beyond the average stimulant that was caffeine.</p><p>"I had to be sure," Mycroft tried to defend himself for the rest of the flat, "Sherlock is a security concern. The fact that I'm his brother changes nothing."</p><p>"Yeah," John eyed him, "You said that before."</p><p>Leena looked over, hearing something odd in John's voice, something that sounded like suspicion.</p><p>"Why fixate on Culverton Smith?" Mycroft continued, ignoring John's words, "He's had his obsessions before, of course. None as long as Leena," he remarked absently, "But this goes a bit further than setting a mantrap for Father Christmas. Spending all night talking to a woman who wasn't even there…"</p><p>"Oh for god's sake," Leena huffed, moving over to her laptop and sitting down…only to struggle to open the top of it with one hand. John hurried over to open it for her, "Thank you," she smiled at John, before turning a narrow-eyed look at Mycroft, "For all your surveillance, you have too many blind spots, Mycroft. Did you even bother to check the cameras IN this room?"</p><p>Mycroft's expression told her he didn't even know there were cameras in the room.</p><p>She rolled her eyes and tapped something into the laptop, John moving behind her as Mycroft moved to stand at her other arm, watching as she brought up a video feed.</p><p>"I never took the camera out after Moriarty," she told them, it seemed like a wise thing to do, given all the enemies Sherlock made, to have some sort of security footage of their flat in the off chance a criminal admitted something thinking they were alone. She hit play from the only footage that came up for three weeks ago that featured someone other than Sherlock, Mrs. Hudson, or Wiggins in the flat. Oh she had really been hoping this would work, that Sherlock HAD encountered someone resembling Faith in their flat to use as proof. This would have been terribly embarrassing if it had been a waking-dream where he'd hallucinated a case, his mind needing a 'big bad' for him to take down so she'd wake up.</p><p>But it was there.</p><p>It was too far to get a clear look at the woman's face, she was sitting in the client's chair, with big glasses on, and Sherlock kept walking in front of the camera, but it was enough to know there WAS a woman there. She'd added in a microphone, taped under the client chair though, usually it was in the middle of the room and able to pick up a good deal of sound.</p><p>It was enough for John and Mycroft to hear the woman imitating Faith Smith and talking about how 'her father' was wanting to kill someone.</p><p>"He spent the night with a real person," she looked up at Mycroft, who appeared alarmed by the sight, "Proof enough?" she turned back to the computer, moving to find another program that was blinking in the corner, another motion sensor camera picking up movement, a live footage, "Honestly, I have no idea how you haven't realized what's bothering him yet."</p><p>"I know his thought processes better than any other human being…" Mycroft began.</p><p>"Except Jackie," John crossed his arms.</p><p>But Mycroft continued as though he hadn't been interrupted, "So please, try to understand…"</p><p>"I was <em>shot</em> Mycroft," Leena cut in, blunt, "He's been trying to 'make London safe' for me, so it won't happen again. We're joined at the hip but we're not the same person. We handle trauma differently. I buy him a bulletproof vest and contemplate tying him to the bed for a time, he tries to rid London of any and all criminals singlehandedly," she sighed, shaking her head, "Is it any wonder why he's fixating on a serial killer? When his wife and daughter would be as much in danger as anyone else?" she snorted, "Don't answer that, you <em>would</em> wonder," she turned in her seat to look up at him, "Find a woman or a man or someone with a pulse, love them, and then, maybe, you'll understand the lengths a person will go to keep what they love safe."</p><p>John swallowed hard, and looked away for a moment, when Leena cursed, in French, moments after she turned back to the computer, "What?" he frowned, because he'd never heard her do that often, if at all.</p><p>"Tell me, John, as a Doctor," Leena began, tense, "Is there any reason for a non-medical personnel to be wearing medical gloves and sitting in a patient's room while they sleep?"</p><p>John had just begun to say 'no' when Leena turned the computer for them to see a camera she'd hidden in Sherlock's hospital room, the room somewhat dark, but with enough light to make out Sherlock sleeping…with Culverton Smith sitting on a chair at the end of his bed, smirking.</p><p>"Especially when visiting hours are over and said person is meant to be at his home?"</p><p>"Shit!" John realized, the only reason Smith would be there…since he was <em>sure</em> the man really <em>was</em> a serial killer now…would be if he was about to go after his next victim.</p><p>On the footage, Smith huffed out a noisy breath, waking Sherlock, "You've been ages waking up. I watched you. It's quite lovely in its way. Take it easy. It's ok. Don't want to rush this. You're Sherlock Holmes."</p><p>John was heading for the door the second the man said 'don't want to rush this' as that was all the confirmation he needed that Sherlock was in danger. Leena was right behind him, ignoring Mycroft already barking commands and orders into his phone as they ran out the door and back to the car that was blessedly still there.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Sherlock blinked a few times, staring at Smith as the man grinned at him, "How did you get in?" he asked, making sure his voice was a breathless whisper, a small tremor to it, as though he'd thought himself safe from the man there and was realizing he was anything but.</p><p>Smith chuckled, standing and walking towards him even as he pointed at the door, "Policeman outside, you mean? Come on. Can't you guess?"</p><p>Sherlock made a show of looking around the room, as though he didn't know about the... "Secret door?"</p><p>"I built this whole wing. Kept firing the architect and builders so no one knew quite how it all fitted together. I can slip in and out anywhere I like, you know…when I get the <em>urge</em>."</p><p>"H. H. Holmes."</p><p>"More than just a way to irritate you," Smith smirked, "Murder castle, but done right. I have a question for you. Why are you here? It's like you walked into my den and laid down in front of me. Why?"</p><p>Sherlock swallowed hard, looking at the man and then down, needing to appear shameful, "You know why I'm here."</p><p>My god, this was hard, he couldn't help but think. Hard in how irritating and annoying this was. To act like this? Like he was a frightened little mouse, suicidal and shameful. If Leena had been there, if he'd tried this on her, she'd take one look at him, snort, and tell him that he had absolutely no future as an actor.</p><p>But Smith, he was so arrogant he'd believe it.</p><p>"I'd like to hear you say it," Smith taunted, "Say it for me, please."</p><p>He took a breath and looked at the man again, "I want you to kill me."</p><p>"Now why would you want that?" Smith wondered, though it was clear in his tone that he didn't care, he just wanted to revel in someone being so pushed down and broken that they felt that way.</p><p>"I…" Sherlock's voice broke, "I swore to my wife, I'd always protect her. She got shot. She nearly died. Because of me. I…I don't deserve her," he blinked, tears in his eyes, that was a bit too close to home, "I don't deserve to live knowing I couldn't keep my promise. My daughter deserves someone better. They don't need a failure in their lives. And..." he trailed off.</p><p>Smith mused at that, "Love," he huffed, like it was a foreign concept to him, "Mankind's greatest weakness."</p><p>Sherlock sniffled and looked away, pretending as though his eye was caught by the medicine bags, "If you increase the dosage four or five times…" he glanced at Smith now that the man was eyeing the drip stand, "Toxic shock should shut me down within about an hour."</p><p>Smith hummed at the thought, moving around the bed to the other side, observing it, "Then I restore the settings. Everyone assumes it was a fault, or you just gave up the ghost," he grinned.</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>Smith eyed him, "You're rather good at this," he complimented, moving to take off his jacket. If he was going to wait another hour, he'd like to be comfortable "Before we start," he turned to Sherlock, "Tell me how you feel."</p><p>Sherlock eyed the man as he began to take his cufflinks off to roll up his sleeves, "I feel scared."</p><p>"Be more specific," Smith ordered with a chuckle, "You only get to do this the once."</p><p>Sherlock closed his eyes, knowing this had to be believable...and conjured up the image of Leena, on the floor of the aquarium, "I'm scared of…dying."</p><p>He was scared of Leena dying, of Liberty dying, of John or Mary or Mrs. Hudson, hell he'd even throw Mycroft in there, but not himself, not in the sense that he was frightened of death but of what he'd leave behind if it happened.</p><p>"You wanted this, though," Smith pointed out.</p><p>"I gave you my reasons."</p><p>"But you don't actually <em>want </em>to die."</p><p>"No," Sherlock admitted, opening his eyes, sure that there were more tears in them now that he'd pictured the nightmare that haunted him every moment of the day, "I don't want to leave Leena."</p><p>Smith smiled as though he were pleased, it was always better when there would be regrets, "Good. Say that for me. Say it."</p><p>"I don't want to die," Sherlock frowned.</p><p>"And again."</p><p>"I don't want to die," he repeated, a little louder, a bit more firm.</p><p>"Once more, for luck."</p><p>Before forcing his voice to sound tearful, he'd hoped to drag it out more, but he couldn't risk Smith catching on, "I don't want to die. I don't…don't want to die."</p><p>Smith leaned over him, coming so close that his face was only inches above his, "Lovely, he cooed, smiling, "Here it comes."</p><p>Sherlock could only turn his head away from Smith as the man reached out to the control panel of the drip machine and pushed the dosage up and up and up.</p><p>It was the only way, after all, to ensure the man didn't see his smirk.</p><p>He felt like a failure, yes. Leena deserved better than him, obviously. He didn't want to leave her, ever.</p><p>Smith was a fool to ever think he would do so willingly and without a fight.</p><p>It was just like the profile said, too high a supposed intelligence just bred overconfidence.</p><p>~8~</p><p>"He's not safe, Greg!" Leena was shouting into the phone as the black car sped down the streets along the river, heading for the hospital.</p><p>"No, he's fine," Lestrade tried to reassure her, "I've got a man on the door. What…what do you think's happened?"</p><p>"Smith is IN the room!" Leena snapped, "Ignoring the fact that it's a hospital and Sherlock is hooked up to a machine, there are pillows right there!"</p><p>John took a single moment to wonder why Leena seemed to think smothering was the go-to method for murder.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Sherlock made a show of sniffling as he turned his head back to look at the liquid now dripping rapidly from the bag of medication on the stand when Smith stepped back from it.</p><p>"So tell me," Smith began conversationally, moving back to the foot of the bed, wanting to watch it happen as fully as he could, "Why are we doing this? To what do I owe the pleasure? You said 'and' before. Thought I didn't catch it, but I did. What other reason did you have?"</p><p>Sherlock sighed, as though he'd been caught, "I wanted to hear your confession, needed to know I was right."</p><p>"But why do you need to die?"</p><p>"The mortuary, your favorite room," he didn't have to pretend how his face twisted in disgust as Smith smiled, "You talk to the dead. You make your confession to them," he watched as Smith moved to sit on the chair, "Why do you do it?"</p><p>"Asking for your wife?" Smith taunted, knowing the woman had likely given a profile but hadn't exactly picked out why HE did what he did, "Why do I kill? It's…it's not about hatred or revenge. I'm not a dark person. It's…" he sighed, "Killing human beings…it just makes me…incredibly happy," he eyed Sherlock, "Suppose that makes me the hedonist."</p><p>"Thrill," Sherlock murmured, before chuckling, "You're wrong. Leena had you pegged."</p><p>Smith's smile fell into an angry frown as he stood, "You know in films when you see dead people pretending to be dead and it's just living people lying down?" he huffed, angry, "That's not what dead people look like. Dead people look like things. I like to make people into things. Then you can own them. You know what? I'm getting a little impatient," he moved to the side of the bed, and pressed a button to lower Sherlock onto his back instead of partly sitting up. He moved closer to Sherlock's face, tugging on one of his gloves to make it more secure, and leaned over him, "Take a big breath if you want…"</p><p>Sherlock's eyes widened as his gaze fell to Smith's hands as he held them up and wiggled his fingers, the only warning he had before Smith shot out, putting his right hand over Sherlock's mouth just a moment after he managed to get a breath in, and pressed down hard. He reached out with his left hand and covered Sherlock's nose, pinching it to keep the man from breathing…</p><p>"Murder is a very difficult addiction to manage," Smith continued to speak, as though Sherlock weren't writhing and struggling on the bed, clawing at his arms, but the man was so weak and feeble he couldn't manage more than a scratch, "People don't realize how much <em>work</em> goes into it. You have to be careful, but if you're rich or famous and loved, it's amazing what people are prepared to ignore. I just have to ration myself, choose the right heart to stop," he hummed, "I suppose your pretty wife did have me pegged," he mused, "I wonder if she'll see me coming," he grinned dangerously at Sherlock, laughing when the man struggled more at the threat to his wife, "No one wants to suspect murder if it's easier to suspect something else! Her line of work, your enemies?" he let out a whistle, "Could be anyone who did it, who got to her," he grunted when Sherlock tried to twist away, "Pease, maintain eye contact," he ordered Sherlock who was now looking around as though for anything to help him, "Maintain eye contact!" he hissed, forcing Sherlock's head towards him, "Maintain eye contact. Please. I like to watch it…happen," he leaned in more, giggling with delight as Sherlock's eyes began to glaze, his struggles slowing, "And off we…pop!"</p><p>Sherlock's hand had just fallen away to droop to the side when the door to the room was smashed open, John charging through with a fire extinguisher in his hand, having rammed the lock enough to break it. Leena was behind him, running past him to Sherlock's side as he gasped for air and turned towards her on the bed to get away from Smith, who John had lunged for and tore away from the bed.</p><p>"Mr. Holmes!" the officer assigned to the door called, following the two in, "You ok?"</p><p>"He was nearly suffocated to death, what do you think!?" Leena snapped at him, turning back to Sherlock as he gripped her good arm, still trying to breathe as she soothed him, his heart monitor racing.</p><p>"What were you doing to him?" John demanded, wanting Smith to say it himself, getting the man in an arm-lock as he moved across the room, farther away from Sherlock, not caring about the whimpers of protest the man was making, "What were you doing?!"</p><p>"He's in distress!" Smith tried to defend, "I'm helping him!"</p><p>John glared, shoving the man into the officer's hold, "Restrain him, now. Do it!"</p><p>The officer quickly did as he was told, moving to hold Smith's arms behind him.</p><p>"I was trying to help him!" Smith insisted.</p><p>"Sherwood," Leena soothed, stroking the side of his face as he gripped one of her wrists to ground himself, "What was he doing to you?"</p><p>"You got it in one," Sherlock panted, "Suffocating me, overdosing me…" he nodded towards the drip.</p><p>John was at their side in an instant, shutting off the machine to stop it and racing to think of the counter drugs to whatever it was, "On what?"</p><p>"Saline," Sherlock sucked in a large gasp of air.</p><p>"…saline?" John blinked, frowning.</p><p>Sherlock chuckled, "Yeah, saline."</p><p>Leena let out a breath that sounded half a sob and half a laugh, resting her forehead on the back of sherlock's head and shaking it, "He won't touch morphine," Leena murmured, before pulling back to look at John, "Not even when he was shot and this was just a punch."</p><p>And a detox, John had wanted to say, but he knew it really wasn't now. It was more the dehydration and malnutrition coupled with the punch that put Sherlock in the hospital, everyone else just thought it was the drugs.</p><p>Sherlock grunted and leaned forward to push the button on the bed to lift it up so he could settle back against it.</p><p>"I got Nurse Cornish to switch the bags," Sherlock agreed, "She's a big fan, you know? Loves my blog."</p><p>Leena looked him over, mumbling, "Tu es sûr que tu vas bien?"</p><p>Sherlock smiled at her, his thumb running over the pulse of her wrist, "Qui," he reassured her, knowing she must have truly been frightened if she slipped into French to ask if he was sure he was alright.</p><p>"Liar," Leena sniffled.</p><p>"Malnourished, dehydrated, sleep deprived," Sherlock remarked, "But alive," he promised, moving her hand from his cheek to his heart, "And," he grinned, "I got my confession!"</p><p>"Such an ass," she murmured under her breath, he just winked at her.</p><p>And, of course, Smith had to ruin the moment by calling out, "I don't recall making any confession," he smirked, stepping forward, out of the officer's hold, but John blocked him. He rolled his eyes, indignant, "What would I be confessing to?"</p><p>"You can listen to it later," Sherlock waved it off.</p><p>"But there is no confession to listen to!" Smith continued, before chuckling, "Oh, Mr. Holmes. I…I don't know if this is relevant, but we found three potential recording devices in the pockets of your coat. Um, all your possessions were searched," he glanced at John and back, "Sorry."</p><p>"Must be something comforting about the number three," Sherlock said easily, "People always give up after three."</p><p>"You were so focused on Sherwood," Leena smirked, reaching out to pick up the small teddy bear resting by the bed, in the perfect position to watch everything that had happened, "Of course you'd find his," she held up the bear, "You didn't find mine."</p><p>John, given the angle of the footage they'd seen in the flat, knew there was a camera in the bear now, though probably a microphone too since they had heard Smith speaking.</p><p>"My wife is a profiler," Sherlock's own smirk matched hers as Smith began to look truly worried and alarmed, "It's her job to get into your head."</p><p>Smith stumbled back, right into the officer's hold as the man cuffed him this time, his face etched with disbelief and despair.</p><p>Sherlock just leaned back against the bed, his hand resting on Leena's, and finally, <em>finally</em>, let himself drift to sleep…</p><p>~8~</p><p>"I had, of course, several other backup plans," Sherlock spoke as he sat in his armchair at 221B, Leena wedged beside him, half on his lap, he was not letting her anywhere out of arms reach for a while, not that she was complaining, "Trouble is, I couldn't remember what they were."</p><p>"Sleep deprivation will do that to you," Leena remarked, using her good hand to run her fingers through the side of his hair, smiling at the clean feel of it. First thing she'd ordered when they got back, a nice hot shower…which he'd dearly wanted to pull her into but the dressing on her shoulder would need more preparation and coverings before she could join him.</p><p>A nice meal from Mrs. Hudson, who was overjoyed they were both back, second and third helpings, and even more sleep and Sherlock was almost looking his normal self, clean shaven, in actual clothing. He would still have a ways to go regaining his weight once more, but for now it was enough that he was hungry and sleeping again.</p><p>Leena glanced over at where Liberty was in a tiny pen they'd set up, Hamish in there too, the boy playing with some stuffed toys while Liberty was on her back, making gurgling noises and cooing, her eyes tracking every movement Hamish made. She looked across to where John and Mary were on the sofa, a spot of tea on a tray resting on the small table between them. It was a happy and cozy feel that made her relax onto Sherlock's side, resting her head on his shoulder as he moved an arm around her waist.</p><p>"Still a bit troubled by the daughter," Sherlock continued, thinking about the footage Leena had shown him, that there HAD been someone there, pretending to be Faith, "Could have been a decoy…someone Faith hired to pretend to be her so her father wouldn't know she'd reached out to stop him…"</p><p>"Or could be Moriarty's doing," Mary finished for him, sipping her tea, unable to help smiling despite that, so, SO relieved the boys had sorted themselves out and got on as friends again.</p><p>"Yes," Sherlock let out a breath.</p><p>Leena, though, shook her head, "He would have aimed more at destroying you, not leading you to a person who was actually a serial killer. You would have worked this one out, no matter what. And, as a consulting criminal, he would have preferred Smith be free to kill more people than caught."</p><p>Sherlock hummed at that, "The recording will probably be inadmissible," he mused, thinking of Smith once more.</p><p>"Sorry, what?" John perked up, the man having been silent and thoughtful the entire time he'd been there, hardly speaking or looking away from his cup.</p><p>"Technically, it's entrapment so it might get thrown out as evidence."</p><p>"Doesn't matter though," Leena brushed it off, "According to Greg, he won't stop confessing to everything," she shook her head, "Bragging."</p><p>"One day I really need to see the profile you drafted for me," Mary teased, not very curious but it was just…so interesting to her how Leena could be so accurate about things like that. Though, she supposed with a degree in psychology and criminology and a decades long friendship with Sherlock Holmes, as well as her experience with the BAU, she would be.</p><p>"That's good, then," John murmured, not quite catching Mary's words but more Leena's.</p><p>"John?" Mary reached out to touch his arm, frowning, "Are you ok?"</p><p>"Yeah," he forced a smile, "I'm fine."</p><p>"Liar," came the word from Sherlock and Leena, AND Mary.</p><p>John let out a long breath, "It's nothing, I just…" he looked up then, his gaze falling on Sherlock and Leena.</p><p>They were just sitting there, on the armchair, together, almost cuddled if that was something Sherlock Holmes would admit to doing. Entwined. Their entire lives had always been entwined, he knew, from the moment they met it was the end for both of them. Nothing and no one would ever come between those two, and they didn't want anyone to either.</p><p>Irene Adler had tried, tried to seduce Sherlock, but the only woman in his life was Leena, so much so that not even a dominatrix with all her tricks could turn him from her.</p><p>And Leena was just as loyal, with her faith and trust, even when the whole world looked at Sherlock and thought him a deranged druggie, she stood by him, saw through him, to the heart of him.</p><p>His heart was Leena, his mind, body, and soul were hers, there was no one else.</p><p>"I cheated on you, Mary," John blurted, turning to her as she straightened on the sofa beside him, shocked.</p><p>He couldn't do it, he couldn't keep pretending. He couldn't just sit there with Sherlock and Leena, the epitome of a committed and faithful and happy relationship (and god wasn't that something when the self-proclaimed sociopath had a healthier relationship with his wife than he did his own) and face them when he had fallen so short. He couldn't keep letting Mary feel the weight of her lies and actions, his disappointment in her, his hurt, when they were to protect him. When all <em>his</em> lies and actions had been to protect himself and not her.</p><p>It was time to be honest.</p><p>He had pulled away from Sherlock, from his friend, because he was terrified of losing Mary, yes. Because the man <em>was</em> dangerous, yes. Because it could have so easily been Mary shot instead of Leena, yes.</p><p>But also…because Sherlock saw everything, Leena understood everyone, and it would only be a matter of time before they saw it on him, before they saw the proof. And just like they felt HE deserved the truth about Mary's past and actions, it would have only been fair that they'd feel Mary should know the truth about himself too.</p><p>"John?" Mary breathed, a hurt in her voice.</p><p>He swallowed hard, "There was a woman on the bus, and I had a plastic daisy in my hair. I'd been playing with Hamish, we were making a…a surprise for you," he looked at Mary, and then down, so ashamed, "And this girl just smiled at me. That's all it was, it was a smile. We texted constantly. You wanna know when? Every time you left the room, that's when. When you were feeding our son, when you were stopping him from crying, that's when."</p><p>Mary looked away a moment and John winced, his eyes filling with tears.</p><p>"That's all it was, just texting," John spoke quietly, scrunching his eyes shut as he forced himself to admit, "But I wanted more. And d'you know something?" he looked at her, pulling her gaze back to him, "I still do. I'm not the man you think I am. I'm not that guy. I never could be. But that's the point. That's the whole point. Who you think I am is the man who I <em>want</em> to be."</p><p>"Oh, John," Mary reached forward to touch his face, relieved it was texting and not something more physical, not that she thought he'd ever allow something to go that far. Despite what he said, he WAS a good and decent and honorable man, "Then be that man," she leaned in and pulled him to her, hugging him tightly, truly just...relieved to know nothing else had happened but that. She'd made her own fair share of mistakes, she'd not been honest with him either, but she was trying to be now and so, it seemed, was he. It hadn't escaped her notice that something had been weighing him down, not just what happened with Leena and Sherlock, but something else tormenting him, now she knew what it was, "We'll both be," she promised, "Well both be the people we want to be for the other," she pulled away, "No more secrets, from either of us, I promise."</p><p>John sniffled, shaking his head, "How can you forgive me?"</p><p>"It was just texting," she reassured him, taking his hand, sniffling a bit, so sure in her bones that it was all it was, and knowing her husband, that he'd made the woman aware he had a wife and family and nothing more could happen, he'd force it to be friendship even if he might have wanted more. Really, the way he was acting, you'd think he'd gone and had a second family with the woman, he hadn't DONE anything, and that was what mattered to her. She'd always been a woman of action, as she'd proven when she'd shot Sherlock, when she'd fled AJ, it was actions that spoke loudest to her, and no action happened here, "It's normal to…to find other people attractive," she added, "It's normal to, on occasion, want someone else. It's the DOING that would hurt."</p><p>"Do you think?" John asked, on the cusp of breaking down about it all.</p><p>Mary laughed a moment, "Honestly, John, you're sitting there like I haven't, every so often, thought about throwing Sherlock down on the ground."</p><p>"What?" Leena called out, her and Sherlock trying to give them privacy in the middle of their sitting room, but that was…not expected.</p><p>Nor, apparently, was it for Sherlock who nearly choked on the sip of tea he'd been taking.</p><p>"Mary!" Leena gave her a look.</p><p>"Oh come on, Jackie," she shot Leena a teasing look, "You have to admit, our husbands are gorgeous specimens."</p><p>"Sherwood, yes," Leena readily agreed, "John…" she took a moment to actually look John over, from head to toe, her good hand actually coming to rest on her chin as she critically eyed him, before actually giving a nod, "I suppose I can see it."</p><p>"Leena!" Sherlock gave her an unimpressed look, even as John blushed and choked on air.</p><p>Leena laughed and leaned in to press a kiss to his cheek, "You are the only one for me, Sherwood."</p><p>"Good," he nodded, grumbling under his breath as he carefully sipped his tea this time, his eyes narrowed at John over the top of the cup.</p><p>John blinked, needing a moment to take in everything that had just happened, before he burst out laughing, even if, underneath the laughs, there were tears.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Leena smiled as she watched Sherlock move around the sitting room of 221B, Liberty in his arms as he lightly burped her, knowing she couldn't do so at the moment with her arm in the sling as it would be for quite a while, until the gunshot wound healed and she could begin physical therapy to regain more strength in it, which would hopefully be soon.</p><p>John and Mary had left only an hour ago with Hamish, both of them needing time and more privacy to really talk things out and so the Holmeses were left to their own devices.</p><p>"I can't believe I missed a month's worth of this," Leena remarked, just…so content and unbearably happy to have this moment with Sherlock and Liberty, to have woken up and been given this chance with them again.</p><p>"I'm sure the camera picked up enough of it," Sherlock murmured.</p><p>"Oh, it did," Leena teased, having gone through all the footage while he'd finally slept and Mrs. Hudson helped her with Liberty, "It's not the same as <em>being</em> here for it."</p><p>Sherlock moved over to her, leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead, "You've no idea how glad I am that you ARE here for it."</p><p>She smiled up at him, "Almost as glad as I am that I woke up when I did," she countered, before moving to a small box that Mary had bought with her, that she'd texted the woman a request to pick up on the way. She managed to open it with one arm and pick up the small cardboard plate within, "Happy Birthday," she turned to him, a small cupcake sitting on the plate.</p><p>"You remembered," her chuckled.</p><p>"Of course I did," she rolled her eyes, "I did receive an invitation to your birthday once or twice, I remember the date," she moved over to him as he finished with Liberty, setting the cupcake down on the table by his armchair as he sat down on it too, shifting Liberty to sit up against his chest, "And that's not all," she added.</p><p>He reached out to take her hand as she stepped away, "I don't need anything else," he told her, earnest, "I have all I need," he looked at her, "All I'll ever need."</p><p>"Sweet," she murmured, leaning in to kiss him, "But you'll want this," she told him, moving to her bag and digging through it, "Your daughter," she called back, "Is just like you. She…" she turned around, something behind her back and gave him a look, "It's YOUR cake, Locksley, you can eat it without needing to sneak a bite," she looked from the cupcake, that now had a large bite in it, and Sherlock, as he held their daughter in front of his face to hide the evidence. He chuckled and lowered Liberty back down, chewing. She shook her head, "As I was saying, your daughter was able to deduce the perfect birthday present to get her father."</p><p>He snorted, "At six weeks babies are only JUST starting to recognize faces," Liberty might have been a little older than that, but not enough to develop that skill to the point she understood family, "I hardly think she even knows who we are in a familial sense."</p><p>Leena couldn't help but smile, knowing he'd stored away all sorts of developmental milestones to monitor Liberty with, and moved to kneel down by the armchair so she was on level with her daughter, "Well she did," she insisted, "Mary and I met up with Liberty and Hamish while you were sleeping yesterday so I could get you a card and our little girl kept knocking over one thing in particular and grabbing for it whenever we came close. Only one thing."</p><p>"What?" he asked, curious now.</p><p>"Close your eyes," she ordered.</p><p>He rolled them, but did as he was told, hearing a rustle of fabric and felt Liberty lightly moved out of his hold and into Leena's arm.</p><p>"Ok, open them,"</p><p>He opened his eyes and started laughing.</p><p>Because Leena was standing there, holding Liberty…and their daughter was wearing a mini-deerstalker hat on her head.</p><p>"Well!" he leapt to his feet, moving over to the coatrack where he kept their special hats, putting his own deerstalker on, and then walking to her with her 'cat-woman' hat in hand, placing it on her head, "I stand corrected," he beamed, "Our daughter is a genius."</p><p>Leena rolled her eyes, "With you as her father, what else would she be?"</p><p>Sherlock just beamed, reaching out to take Liberty's hand as she flailed it, his heart stretched wide with love for the two girls before him.</p><p>~8~</p><p>John felt…quite a bit better as he met with his therapist once more a few weeks later, having taken time away from that to just…sort himself out, talk to Mary, spend time with Sherlock and Leena, and the children, really examine his priorities and what he wanted to work on in himself before feeling like he was ready to go back to therapy again.</p><p>The last time it had been more to use the woman to help him decide what to do about Sherlock and their friendship, but…that was sorted, as much as it could be, and he was realizing there were more important things in himself he should focus on improving and genuinely work towards in therapy instead.</p><p>"You seem so much better, John," the woman smiled at him.</p><p>He nodded, smiling a little, "Yeah, I…I am. I think I am. Not all day, not every day, no one is, but, uh, you know."</p><p>"And Hamish?"</p><p>He beamed at the mention of his son, such a stark contrast to how he'd reacted to anything even remotely personal last time, "Oh, beautiful, perfect, unprecedented in the history of baby boys. That's not my bias, that's scientific fact."</p><p>He was careful to say boys, last time he'd said babies in general it had led to a three hour debate (row) between him and Sherlock about which of their children was more perfect, until their wives had to call a truce for them and agree Hamish would be the most perfect boy and Liberty would be the most perfect girl. He could agree to that.</p><p>"Good," the therapist nodded, "And Sherlock Holmes?"</p><p>"Back to normal," John laughed, "Leena's got…she's got her hands even more full," a joke between them, since she was technically down a hand, "But they're good."</p><p>He chuckled, recalling the last case he'd been helping with before heading over here. A man absolutely <em>sure</em> his wife was possessed by the devil, which had Sherlock throwing them both out while Leena recounted a startling number of unsubs she'd come across who would target people because they thought they were possessed by demons and needed to be saved.</p><p>"That is good," the therapist nodded, "He and his wife are good, his daughter is happy?"</p><p>"Very," John snorted, "I'm pretty sure they're worse than before."</p><p>The woman's lip quirked in an odd smile, "What about his brother?"</p><p>"Mycroft?" John sighed, he'd complained enough about Mycroft's interference last time, how he kept texting and calling him to check on Sherlock, "He's fine. I mean, obviously 'normal' and 'fine' are both relative terms when it comes to Sherlock and Mycroft."</p><p>"Obviously," the therapist teased, "But I didn't mean Mycroft. I meant the other one."</p><p>"Which other one?" John blinked.</p><p>"You know, the secret one."</p><p>John opened his mouth to answer how he had probably just misunderstood Mycroft's one remark about how it 'didn't help last time' sort of thing when he'd been talking about being a brother. He'd thought, for some reason, it meant that Mycroft was talking about another sibling, another brother, but Sherlock had never mentioned more siblings than Mycroft, unless you counted the joke he and Jackie pulled on Anderson and Donovan when she came back from America. He'd been about to really question Mycroft about it when he'd had the spooks around, but things got off track.</p><p>…wait.</p><p>He blinked again, that had…that had happened AFTER he'd seen his therapist the last time, and he'd…he hadn't had any contact with her since.</p><p>"How did you know about that? I didn't tell you that."</p><p>She gave him a calm look, "You must have done."</p><p>"I really didn't."</p><p>"Well, maybe Sherlock told me," she shrugged.</p><p>"No," he shook his head, "You've met Sherlock exactly once. In this room. He was fussing over Liberty and ranting about a serial killer, he didn't say anything about a brother."</p><p>"Oh, no, no," she laughed at that, "I met him before that."</p><p>"When?" he frowned, because if she had, Sherlock would have recognized her when he caught sight of her last time.</p><p>"We spent a night together," she stated, "It was lovely. We had chips," she sighed, wistful, "He was so worried about my 'suicidal tendencies,'" she murmured.</p><p>John froze, recalling when Sherlock had made the remark of meeting Faith for chips, how he'd drawn a line on his wrist as though someone had slit them, he'd been talking about <em>Faith</em> but…what…what was going on?</p><p>"You're not what I expected, Mr. Holmes," the therapist spoke, her accent shifting from German to a North accent like Faith's, "You're nicer."</p><p>He frowned, watching her intently as she took her glasses off, "Culverton gave me Faith's original note," she spoke, her German accent back as she stood, "A mutual friend put us in touch," she moved over to the back door, turning the key to lock it, her accent wobbling between German and English, "Did Sherlock ever tell you about the note?" she glanced at John, moving over to a side table to drop the key there, "I added some deductions for Sherlock," and put her glasses down too, "He was…quite good," she snorted, "Talked about his wife a bit too much," she wrinkle her nose, "But he didn't get the big one."</p><p>She shrugged as though it were no big deal and turned, reaching to her right eye and pulling a contact lens out, revealing her true blue eyes beneath.</p><p>"In fairness, though," she turned back to John, her accent now sounding southern English, rather well educated too, "He does have excellent taste in chips," she tilted her head to eye him, "Is that him or is that his dear Leena's taste?" she hummed, considering it, moving to brush her hair back.</p><p>John's gaze darted to her ear, where a small plastic daisy flower was resting, a very familiar flower, "What's that?"</p><p>"What's what?"</p><p>"The flower in your hair, it's like I had on the bus."</p><p>"You looked very sweet," she told him, reaching up to take the flower and look at it, "But then…" she switched her accent once more, Scottish this time, "You have such nice eyes."</p><p>John jumped to his feet, seeing it now, the similarities, the face…the woman before him was the same as on the bus, she'd said the same thing to him.</p><p>"Amazing the times a man doesn't really look at your face," she commented, her accent back to the southern style, "Oh, you can hide behind a sexy smile, or a walking cane or just be a therapist, talking about you ALL the time," she rolled her eyes, sounding bored.</p><p>But the second he took a step, she'd turned and grabbed a pistol off a nearby table, aiming it at him, causing him to stop, his hands raised.</p><p>"Oh, please don't go anywhere. I'm sure the therapist who actually lives here wouldn't want blood on the carpet," she blinked, thinking about it, "Oh, hang on, it's fine. She's in a sack in the airing cupboard."</p><p>"Who are you?" John demanded.</p><p>"Isn't it obvious?" she frowned, "Haven't you guessed? I'm Eurus!"</p><p>"Eurus?" he repeated, as though the name was supposed to mean something to him.</p><p>"Silly name, isn't it? Greek. Means the East Wind."</p><p>John's jaw clenched, something Leena had once said, about how Mycroft would tell them stories to scare them, how the east wind was coming to get them…but no…no this…this couldn't be…this wasn't…</p><p>"My parents loved silly names," she continued, "Like Eurus…or Mycroft…or Sherlock."</p><p>His eyes widened, alright, so it was exactly like that then.</p><p>"Oh, look at him," she scoffed, "Didn't it ever occur to you, not even once, that Sherlock's secret brother might just be Sherlock's secret sister?" she eyed him, but John could only blink at her, "Huh. He's making a funny face," she aimed the gun higher, "I think I'll put a hole in it."</p><p>John raised his hands, stepping back as Eurus pulled the trigger…</p>
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<hr/><p>A/N: Adding the End Notes here too, I really need to work on brevity lol:</p><p>I hope Leena and Sherlock's plan to get Smith to confess was believable. In the episode I felt like Sherlock was a little too on top of things even while on drugs, he was predicting too much and we didn't really see HOW he came to do it other than a quick explanation after the fact. I tried to dig a little deeper and explore what led to certain things happening, as an examination of how well Leena knows her husband and a look at how Sherlock WAS struggling on such little sleep and food.</p><p>But, even then, things came up that neither of them planned for and they had to adapt or take a second look at things, try and get it done on the fly.</p><p>Leena DOES know Sherlock, very well, she can guess up to a point what he may or may not do. Even being slightly conscious at the end of her 'coma' she came out of it and really just needed to know what sort of state Sherlock was in to gauge what actions he might take. I think we have all been at that place where we're either super tired or super stressed and we just aren't thinking straight. She needs to know how bad he is to understand if there are things he's going to fixate on or mistakes he tends to make when he's like that. I once got 18 hours of sleep total in a 7 day period, by the end of it I was repeating myself because I honestly couldn't remember if I'd said things, my mother had to drive me to and from work because she didn't think it was safe for me to drive on such little sleep, and I came home after work and was confused why the milk was in the refrigerator and not the cabinet. None of us are at our best when we're tired lol, Leena's gotten plenty of sleep and is more than ready to help make up for Sherlock's slack ;)</p><p>But even then there are some grey areas since she isn't living in his head and she doesn't have all the information he does about Smith, she can only go on her best guess till she gets to him and even then they don't have a lot of time to discuss his plans, she has to sort of go along with it and hope she's picking up the right cues. Like she knows he wants to get closer to Smith, but not how he planned to do it. Because, in her mind, Sherlock wouldn't think to use a 'fake drug relapse' on his own without her there to back him up later, that's not even on his mind...so how else would he get close to Smith? She tries to help but giving him that opportunity to use that as an excuse, with someone in his corner who knows the truth, Mary. She knows Sherlock wants a confession and she knows Smith, from the profile and what she knows/has dealt with of serial killers, won't give it unless he's alone and thinking he's about to win. So she knows Sherlock was likely to get himself committed to Smith's hospital, but not HOW. She would have said he'd have just collapsed at some point, and others would rush to get him checked out and he'd have a room and Smith would think he was weak. But with the shock of Faith, that went out the window and he improvised a drug-induced break to get himself committed. Different means to achieve the same end.</p><p>I tried to show how sometimes plans go awry, even for the great Sherlock Holmes, and he does make mistakes, so does Leena, but when they work together they are able to sort of catch the other before those mistakes hit the fan :) Working together they can bounce off each other and really make it difficult for their enemy to take them down. Leena has experience with serial killers, that was what she and the BAU handled, so she knows how to get the upper-hand over Smith and keep him in his place, keep him frustrated and wanting to show how clever he is. She's purposefully goading him by cutting him off, by not rising to his bait, by guessing his answers, because she knows it'll push his buttons and make him want to prove himself more. And that overconfidence is what could very well lead to his downfall :)</p><p>I also sort of wanted to have Leena being sort of fed up and just done with the entire situation. She's not in a playing mood once Sherlock gets admitted to the hospital, she's not going to be easy going, or mince words. She's understanding with John, because he needs her to be, psychologically he needs someone to go 'you know, your fear and anger were justified and valid. I wouldn't have done it that way, but it's your right to feel how you do' and then talk him back to reason. He's had nothing but everyone telling him he was wrong and making a fuss and being a terrible person and guilting him. I felt like Leena would see that he just needed empathy to break past that defense he had around his actions. 'I understand why you did it, but have you considered...' sort of thing. I think, in any other situation, she would have been furious with John for abandoning Sherlock, if she hadn't been in the same place he had been in. If this had been just after Sherlock got back, and JOHN had put Sherlock in such a dangerous situation where Sherlock nearly died, she probably would have not spoken to John as well. She's been there. She's almost lost Sherlock forever and holds onto him that much more tightly, and anyone trying to take him away from her would feel her wrath. She can't fault John his initial reaction, and seeing him there, seeing him staying with Sherlock, it means he was coming around to how his reaction might not have been the right one to stick with.</p><p>Mycroft, however, is another story. And, I think, how she handles everything in 221B shows both her tension and anxiety with the situation, but also how she's just looking at this in terms of logic as it relates to Sherlock. Mycroft looks at the kitchen and sees a meth lab, Leena has the logical thought to look at the notes of what Sherlock was actually working on before assuming it's meth. Mycroft hears Sherlock met 'Faith' but that it wasn't her and assumes he hallucinated it, Leena logically just says check the cameras and see if there's a person or not then. Mycroft sees the state of the flat and assumes it's drugs, Leena just looks at the teacups and adds onto the knowledge that it is a FACT there are NO drugs in the flat and sees her daughter's room is put together where everything else isn't and makes the connection to Sherlock not taking care of anything BUT their daughter, not even himself. I know it may seem like she's too on top of things at 221B, but she's just so done with the situation and Mycroft's assumptions and wants it OVER, so she just gets straight to the point.</p><p>And if Mycroft is shamed for how he jumps to conclusions, all the better.</p><p>I really wanted to explore the struggles that both Sherlock and Leena are going through in this part of the episode. Sherlock, a lot of his issues are mental, brought about by his dark thoughts on himself, how he has little sleep, little food, little anything going for him and it's making him weak and slow. Leena's issues are more physical. Her arm is in a sling, she can't use it right now, she's physically weak from being asleep so long, and she's going to be on blood thinners for a while as a precaution. There will be a few lasting effects from these events :(</p><p>I also know, in the episode, Sherlock finds the note 'Faith' gave him and sees a hidden message on it. We'll get to that soon, but not here. Because he's not freaking out that the hallucination was 'real' because Leena has already proven to him it IS real, so finding the note isn't triggering anything in his head to check it over again or examine it closer. Sherlock is, finally, at a good place, it's John who's in trouble }:)</p><p>As for John and Mary. I felt like the way she was portrayed in the episode was both true to her as a person but also a bit of what John's mind hoped she'd say and do when he revealed he'd 'met someone.' Here, with Mary surviving, I felt like she would look at it in terms of what John has done, and how bad he feels, and what she has done, and how bad she feels, and compare them. She physically left, she ran, she put her family in danger, she was, in a way, the reason Leena got shot, and she feels so immensely guilty about all the lies and mistakes she's made. John, on the other hand, hasn't really done anything physically, emotionally probably, but he's also an honorable man, and he's being truthful with her, and he hasn't really DONE anything that risked their family. Because she unquestionably believes it was just texting and that he made whoever he was texting aware that he's married and friendship is it. I feel like Mary would compare what she's done to what John has and still feel like her acts were bigger, she'd feel like her lies and her running is what put that distance between them and maybe led to John reaching out to someone else, keeping so much from him. She's a woman of action. But she also understands that she's told lie after lie, so she can't quite turn that on him when he semi-lies or withholds the truth. All she can really do is say 'ok, from this point on, we're both honest.'</p><p>Because, I think, if John did something like that AFTER this point, he would certainly face her wrath ;)</p><p>But oh boy, we're at Eurus now! O.O I wonder what will happen? }:D</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. The Final Problem: A Sister</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sherlock looked down at his mobile as it vibrated in his hand, seeing a message from Leena.</p><p>
  <em>Film's cut off</em><br/>
<strong>LH</strong>
</p><p>His lip quirked up of its own accord when he saw her initials. She always would just sign off as 'L' but now she took to 'LH' for Leena Holmes. It shouldn't be so distracting, given she'd done it ever since their wedding, literally texting him from where she'd been sitting next to him in the cab ride from the venue a simple smiling emoji just so she could sign it that way, but every time he saw it he smiled at the reminder.</p><p>She was his wife now.</p><p>A wife who was also helping him launch psychological warfare on his brother.</p><p>How had ever become this lucky?</p><p>This was shaping up to be a <em>very</em> good day!</p><p>Well, relatively speaking. <em>John</em> probably wasn't having the best day. And, by rights, HE should be having a worse day than this considering his entire world might very well be turned on its side depending what he learned from Mycroft in the next few minutes, whether his brother would confirm or reject a revelation John had blurted out upon entering 221B only hours ago.</p><p>It had been quite a shock to them, to him, Leena, and Mary, who had come to them concerned when John hadn't come home after work and hadn't phoned or texted that he would be late as he always did. Not even ten minutes after she'd arrived, John came barreling through the door, slamming it open with such force that he woke Hamish, who had been dozing in Mary's arms, and caused the boy to start crying which then made Liberty begin to cry.</p><p>(He honestly wasn't sure whether Liberty did that due to the noise jarring her or the fact that Hamish was just sad and it made her sad, she was too young to tell for sure, though he found himself endeared to the thought that his daughter was just empathetic and cared about other people, just like her mother. It certainly made life easier, in terms of making friends, when one gave off the impression of caring rather than being indifferent like he often was.)</p><p>While Mary soothed the boy and he cradled Liberty and Leena hurried to get John sitting down and moved to make some tea for the startled man, John had revealed that he thought Sherlock was in grave danger…from his sister.</p><p>Truly, for a moment he wasn't proud of, he'd thought John meant Harriet. But, then again, he was always a little more distracted when his daughter was in his arms and requiring his attention. The fact that Leena had come back in with the tea and asked what Harriet had done made him feel better though, even she had thought it!</p><p>It wasn't till John proclaimed that he was talking about <em>Sherlock's</em> sister, that it began to sink in. At least he hadn't been alone in his confusion and denial that he didn't have a sister then either, because Leena was right there beside him, frowning and confused as well, SHE had never met or heard of a third Holmes child and what was John talking about? Was he SURE he didn't need to go to the hospital?</p><p>The man had fumbled through his explanation, how Mycroft had let slip once that he'd had some hand in a familial event surrounding a 'before' implying there was another sibling he'd handled in the past besides Sherlock. Then he spoke of his theory that there was a secret brother or something Mycroft was hiding from them…but that hadn't made sense to him because Sherlock had never mentioned another brother, nor had Leena, both of them had said in the past that Sherlock only had one sibling, Mycroft. So he'd thought he'd just misunderstood it…</p><p>Until his therapist had asked about the secret sibling.</p><p>When John hadn't said a word about it nor, he was sure, had anyone else that he knew who had contact with his therapist either.</p><p>And then his therapist revealed SHE was the secret sibling, Eurus.</p><p>Sherlock had tried to rationalize it that John <em>had</em> to be mistaken, or that his therapist truly had need of a therapist of her own if she believed she was related to him and Mycroft.</p><p>Until John added that <em>she</em> was the Faith Smith that Sherlock had met, that she'd admitted to impersonating Faith, and she was the woman he'd texted from the bus, and then <em>she shot him</em>!</p><p>…with a tranquilizer dart, but still! She SHOT him!</p><p>Leena had been the voice of reason amid his denials, that there was only one person who could say one way or the other if this woman was delusional or speaking the truth and it was Mycroft. She had asked Mary though, to take the children to Harriet's for a visit while they confronted Mycroft and this possible sister. The woman hadn't been happy, if they were going to confront the woman who shot her husband she wanted to be there! But when Leena pointed out that this woman was potentially delusional and clearly knew about Hamish and Liberty from John's sessions if nothing else, she was a danger to the children if she could just shoot John. She pointed out that neither of them were as skilled as her with weapons or as highly trained and careful. She was the only one they trusted to protect the children while this mad woman was on the loose.</p><p>Mary had begrudgingly agreed and left with Liberty and Hamish, leaving them to draft up a plan to confront Mycroft, waiting till they confirmed with Mary she was at Harriet's and safe before doing so.</p><p>Honestly, Sherlock was a bit surprised at Leena's involvement, she didn't often condone psychological warfare, as he'd been made aware when he'd tried to trick John during the dog case. She'd seen too many truly deranged criminals during her work with the BAU who utilized that tactic to feel comfortable allowing him to use it. But this was <em>Mycroft</em> and, apparently, she'd actually been giving a ridiculous amount of thought to a way to get the man to confess Sherlock was alive when he'd faked his death and had been 2 weeks late in returning, before she'd decided that, as entertaining as having the man shite his pants would be, just confronting him and letting him know SHE knew the truth would save time since she really was very worried about Sherlock's wellbeing.</p><p>The plan she'd initially drafted though had always been at the back of her mind and, with some adaptations from Sherlock and his knowledge of his brother and his own back-of-the-mind plans to one day attempt such psychological warfare on the man, they had things ready to go by nightfall.</p><p>John was setting up some capsules to release trails of blood on a set of portraits, Leena was editing footage to interfere with Mycroft's movie night, and he was orchestrating the two of his Homeless Network he'd roped into helping him, one dressed like a little girl and the other like a clown.</p><p>The clown had been Leena's idea.</p><p>He was <em>never</em> going to make the mistake of making an enemy of his wife, <em>ever</em>. She was devious.</p><p>
  <em>On his way</em><br/>
<strong>LH</strong>
</p><p>Came another text. He nodded to himself, knowing that Leena had finished her task. She was going to cut in footage of some old family video he had of him and Mycroft at the beach with his parents, just a short while before he met Leena, to get the man's mind on his family, on this supposed missing sister. Right near the end would be a segment of 'I'M BACK' to spook him. He would then, undoubtedly, try to leave the viewing room only to find that one door was locked, leaving him only one option of using the second door.</p><p>A bit of hiding in the dark from Leena, disguising her voice, pitching it a bit, and whispering his name would have Mycroft running.</p><p>"Go," he turned to the two men helping him, sending the one dressed as a girl off running, his footsteps hard on the stairs to draw Mycroft's attention.</p><p>Sherlock gave a nod to the other man, the clown, to go sneak up behind Mycroft, and he made his way towards the viewing room, being sure to make some creaking noises and flicker the lights as he went. He waited till Mycroft passed and headed down another hall, before he ducked into the viewing room to see Leena pulling herself up from behind the row of seats she'd hidden behind. She sent him a smirk and wink.</p><p>He tossed her a small microphone once she was near enough to catch it with her good arm, her other still in a sling, "Mycroft…" she spoke into it, pitching her voice again, trying to make it sound as young as possible, being careful with her words and accent to reflect the one John had described the therapist having that seemed, to him, to be her actual accent.</p><p>Sherlock moved his hand to the small of her back to lead her out, moving up a set of stairs reserved for the 'servants' so they could get above Mycroft and watch him squirm in the dark. By now, by his count, Mycroft should be discovering the mannequin John set up of a little girl.</p><p>"Why don't you come out and show yourself?" they could hear Mycroft shouting, "I don't have time for this."</p><p>Leena snorted, lifting the microphone again, continuing to speak as though a child, "We have time, brother dear. All the time in the world."</p><p>They paused, hearing a thumping noise of Mycroft giving chase, so he'd spotted the 'little girl' running around his home and was trying to catch her.</p><p>"My-croft," Leena sing-songed.</p><p>"Who are you?!" Mycroft demanded, sounding like it was from down the hall, by the main stairs.</p><p>"You know who!"</p><p>"Impossible…" Mycroft declared.</p><p>Sherlock stiffened, looking to Leena, serious, as Mycroft confirmed what John had told them. He would only utter that word if he truly thought someone was there who shouldn't be. He wouldn't be this frightened over a ghost story, it was a real person, alive and physically there.</p><p>"Nothing's impossible," Leena continued when the lights flickered thanks to John, a signal that Mycroft had reached the portraits, "You of all people know that," she waited a minute and a half, giving Mycroft time to see the portraits, before continuing, using a phrase Sherlock had suggested if this 'Eurus' was actually his sister, because Eurus meant 'the East Wind' and there was one particular phrase Mycroft always used when it came to that danger, "Coming to get you!" Sherlock turned and grabbed a helmet off of a nearby suit of armor, bowling it down the hall towards his brother and ducking to the side, out of sight, "There's an East Wind coming, Mycroft! Coming to get you!"</p><p>"You can't have got out!" Mycroft shouted, "You <em>can't</em>!"</p><p>Sherlock managed to catch Leena's gaze even in the dark, nodding his head, grim.</p><p>It wasn't a stranger, it wasn't some delusional woman. The East Wind had been a specific choice of words meant to test him. Mycroft could have shouted out 'who are you?!' at that, but instead he confirmed this was someone he had locked away, someone who should be secure…and someone he was very, very frightened of being released.</p><p>It was only a clattering sound that pulled Sherlock's attention away, looking over to see that the clown had appeared and was confronting Mycroft with a sword. They could just barely make out Mycroft at the end of the hall, holding the umbrella he often carried, though it was the gun he kept sheathed in it, which he now had ripped the end off to reveal. Sherlock rolled his eyes, his brother really was THE most predictable man in the world.</p><p>"No use, Mycroft," Leena taunted when the man tried to fire the gun at the clown only to find it empty, "There's no defense…and nowhere to hide."</p><p>The clown charged at Mycroft who turned and ran down another set of stairs, racing for the nearest doors, but they were locked.</p><p>"Come on," Sherlock sighed, "Enough of this," he declared, moving to step onto the hall that looked down on the foyer, drawing Mycroft's attention to him.</p><p>"Sherlock?" Mycroft breathed, "Help me!"</p><p>Sherlock raised his hand and let out a piercing whistle, John turning the lights on at the signal, the clown standing down, and the other man in the girl's dress and wig jogging forward as they'd been told to do.</p><p>"Experiment complete," Sherlock eyed Mycroft, "Conclusion: I have a sister."</p><p>"This was <em>you</em>?!" Mycroft glared up at him, "All of this was you?"</p><p>"US," Leena corrected as she moved beside him, the microphone by her lips so he heard her speak as though the little girl, before lowering it.</p><p>"Conclusion two," Sherlock continued, "My sister, Eurus, apparently, has been incarcerated from an early age in a secure institution controlled by my brother," he waved down at the man, "Hey, bro!"</p><p>"You're <em>never</em> being godfather now, Mycroft," Leena warned him, frowning at him. Sherlock had a theory that Eurus was his younger sister, not older, she didn't know what made him think that, but if the woman HAD been his younger sister, she would have been very, very young when she was taken away. For Mycroft to do that to a child? If she and Sherlock had another baby one day, Mycroft was off the list till the end of time.</p><p>"Why would you do this…" Mycroft looked around, "This pantomime? <em>Why</em>?"</p><p>Sherlock ignored him, "Conclusion three: you are terrified of her!"</p><p>"You have no idea what you're dealing with. None at all!"</p><p>Leena frowned at that, hearing an actual tremor in his voice. Normally Mycroft would have more arrogance in his voice, when he wanted Sherlock to just take him at his word and believe him, this...the tremor, it made it sound almost like he was pleading, like he was genuinely worried for what Sherlock might try to do when he didn't understand the situation. It made her feel like there was more going on, which, to be fair, she HAD suspected anyway. For as horrified as she was at the thought of Mycroft locking a child away, part of her, the small part that knew Mycroft really was an intelligent man, knew he really had to have a good reason to do it. She was just furious he had kept it quiet all these years, from everyone apparently.</p><p>"New information," John's voice joined them as the man strode out from a hall below to stand before Mycroft, "She's out."</p><p>"That's not possible."</p><p>"It's more than possible," Sherlock defended.</p><p>"She was John's therapist," Leena told him.</p><p>"Shot me during a session," John added.</p><p>"Only with a tranquillizer," Sherlock scoffed.</p><p>"We still had ten minutes to go."</p><p>"Well, we'll see about a refund," he reached out and absently put his hand on the small of Leena's back, leading her to the stairs to head down to the others, calling out to the two of his Network that had assisted them, "Right, you two. Wiggins has got your money by the gate. Don't spend it all in one crack den."</p><p>"Or on crack at all!" Leena shouted, but they were already off.</p><p>"Oh," Sherlock mused as they reached the bottom and came face-to-face with Mycroft, "I hope we didn't spoil your enjoyment of the movie."</p><p>Mycroft frowned when neither of them said a word more, just heading for the previously locked doors, "You're just <em>leaving</em>?"</p><p>"Well, we're not staying here," Sherlock scoffed, "Eurus is coming and, uh, someone's disabled all your security."</p><p>"Sorry," Leena wiggled her phone at him, "Not sorry."</p><p>"Sleep well!" Sherlock called over his shoulder as he and Leena left, though they remained near enough to wait for John and hear what Mycroft might say to him when he thought they weren't around to hear, wanting more clues.</p><p>"Doctor Watson," Mycroft stopped him, "Why would he do that to me? That was insane!"</p><p>"You think this was all Sherlock?" John snorted, HE knew that Sherlock also had a hand in this, tweaking things, adding to it, but a majority of this plan was 2 years in the making for Leena when her frustrations with Mycroft ran too high, "You let Jackie think her husband was dead for two years, Mycroft, this was her going easy on you."</p><p>"She knew he was alive!" Mycroft defended.</p><p>"Well, also, she's a profiler, and her profile of you said that you wouldn't tell the truth unless you were actually wetting yourself."</p><p>"So that's it, is it? You're just <em>going</em>?"</p><p>"Well, don't worry. There's a place for people like you, the desperate, the terrified, the ones with nowhere else to run."</p><p>"What place?"</p><p>"221B Baker Street," John stated, before heading for the door after them, "See you in the morning. If there's a queue, join it!"</p><p>"For God's sake! This is <em>not</em> one of your idiot cases."</p><p>"Oh," John paused and turned back to Mycroft, pointing up the stairs, "You might wanna close that window. There IS an East Wind coming," before he reached out and pulled the door shut, smirking when he saw the others, "How long?"</p><p>"He'll be first in line," Leena declared.</p><p>Sherlock hummed, considering it, "He'd never want to appear that desperate."</p><p>"But he IS that scared," Leena countered, which made Sherlock frown.</p><p>In all his life he'd <em>never</em> seen his brother genuinely terrified or something or someone else. This sister of theirs, whoever she was, whatever she'd done…she inspired that in Mycroft. He trusted Leena's assessment of it, knowing he wasn't the best at hearing fear in other people's voices or actions, but Leena was.</p><p>If he was first in line…then this truly was the most dangerous case they had ever taken on.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Leena sat on the arm of Sherlock's armchair, the man himself sitting in it, his hands steepled together under his chin, John across on his own chair, a pad of paper and a pen in hand, though their client was being rather reluctant to speak. She eyed Mycroft as he stood in the middle of the room, refusing to sit on the chair they reserved for clients, Mrs. Hudson in the doorway, observing for she was never fond when Mycroft was there and always sure he'd upset his brother, which was fair as he often did.</p><p>He had been first in line, as she'd feared.</p><p>"You have to sit in the chair," Mrs. Hudson finally said, for none of them were speaking, waiting for Mycroft to come to THEM for help this time, "They won't talk to you unless you sit in the chair. It's the rules."</p><p>"I'm not a client," Mycroft nearly sneered.</p><p>"Then get out," Sherlock replied simply.</p><p>Leena leaned forward to put a hand on his shoulder, knowing this entire thing had made him very on edge. He prided himself on his mind palace, on his memory, his observational skills…yet an entire person, an entire <em>sibling</em>, was just gone and he hadn't realized. He had deleted things before, people, names and faces he didn't need any longer once a case was solved. But never anyone from his family. It was making him question everything.</p><p>Leena, though, was of the mind that this was not a conscious decision on his part, he was fearful that it was and he just couldn't remember it.</p><p>She knew it was worrying him deeply, that if he could so easily remove or delete or forget his own sister…what could it mean for others? For her or Liberty? Would there ever come a day where he would delete them? He didn't feel he could trust himself any longer and she would do all she could to help him resolve this…even if it meant she had to kick Mycroft in the knees (or higher) instead of the shins to get him to sit in the damn chair!</p><p>Mycroft, either from Mrs. Hudson's prodding, or perhaps the way he noticed Leena's eyes narrow at his kneecaps, moved to sit in the chair…waiting for one of them to speak. He let out a sigh when he saw Mrs. Hudson still in the doorway, "She's not going to stay there, is she?"</p><p>"Would you like a cup of tea?" Mrs. Hudson asked by way of leaving.</p><p>"Thank you."</p><p>"The kettle's over there," she pointed, and headed down the stairs, leaving the three with a smile and Mycroft glowering.</p><p>"So what happens now?" Mycroft asked once he was sure Mrs. Hudson was far enough away to not overhear, "Are you going to make deductions?"</p><p>"You're going to tell the truth, Mycroft, pure and simple," Sherlock stated, leaning back in his chair, turning somewhat so Leena's hand was more firmly grounding him.</p><p>"Who was it said, 'Truth is rarely pure, and never simple?'"</p><p>"Oscar Wilde," Leena recited, "Stop trying to change the subject."</p><p>"So there were three of us," Sherlock began, getting to the point, "I know that now. You, me, and…Eurus," Mycroft nodded, "A sister I can't remember. Interesting name, Eurus. It's Greek, isn't it?"</p><p>"The god of the East Wind," Leena murmured, wanting badly to ask the questions she had herself about the woman, but right now Sherlock was the one who needed his answers first, "'The East Wind is coming to get us,'" she glared at Mycroft for that.</p><p>"You used that to scare us," Sherlock narrowed his own eyes, reminded of that. It started with him, a thing to get him to behave, Leena's English hadn't been strong enough to fully understand the threat, but when she could, the stories Mycroft would make up to frighten her as well, always the East Wind, eventually it became a tactic against her too.</p><p>He was starting to realize now, Mycroft had used it against Leena by making it a threat to HIM. He had started off saying the East Wind would come for Sherlock if he didn't behave, a way to try and get Leena to keep him out of trouble. But when their friendship strengthened and Leena was just as involved in the trouble they got into, Mycroft had begun to use it against HER too. A way to still keep him out of trouble, because he would never want to do anything that would put Leena in danger or get her in trouble, he wanted to protect her from the East Wind as much as she did him.</p><p>Finding out the boogieman of his childhood was a real person...he didn't know how to handle that.</p><p>"No," Mycroft shook his head.</p><p>"Please," Leena scoffed, offended that he would insult their recollections of that very real childhood scare.</p><p>"You turned my sister into a ghost story," Sherlock accused.</p><p>"Of course I didn't," Mycroft continued to insist, "I monitored you."</p><p>"You what?" John frowned.</p><p>Mycroft, instead of answering him or explaining to Sherlock, looked at Leena, knowing that, as angry as she was about how this would affect Sherlock, with her background, SHE would be the one more likely to LISTEN to him about this, "Memories can resurface, wounds can reopen," he nodded when he saw her stiffen at the implications he was bringing up, knowing he was getting through her anger and to her concern for Sherlock. It had the added effect of making Sherlock frown and drew his attention to his brother, seeing he might be willing to hear him out now too, "The roads we walk have demons beneath and yours have been waiting for a very long time. I never bullied you. I used, at discrete intervals, potential trigger words to update myself as to your mental condition. I was looking after you."</p><p>"Why can't I remember her?" Sherlock whispered.</p><p>Leena reached out and ran a hand through his hair, looking at him so sadly, before she turned to Mycroft, understanding what he meant by resurfacing memories, "What did she do to Sherlock?" she asked, a waver in her voice that had Sherlock looking at her sharply, noting tears in the corner of her eyes, "Mycroft, what did she DO?"</p><p>Mycroft had to look away.</p><p>"Hold on…" John frowned, catching up a little faster than Sherlock, he was a medical man after all, "You don't think…"</p><p>"It's the only reason short of a head injury that would explain it," Leena cast a glance at John and back to Mycroft, "Trauma. She did something, or..." she seemed reluctant to say it, "Or multiple things, so traumatic that you blocked it out," she looked at Sherlock for the last part, "You would have had to be just a child when it happened, unable to cope with what she did and so you…blocked it. Blocked all of it, all of her."</p><p>Sherlock let out a breath at that, turning to Mycroft for confirmation.</p><p>Mycroft's grim expression said it all. He turned to John, "This is a private matter."</p><p>"John stays," Sherlock cut in when John moved to get up, his voice hard and shaking with anger that something might have happened to him at someone's hands and he couldn't remember who or what.</p><p>"This is family," Mycroft hissed at him.</p><p>"That's why he stays!" Sherlock snapped, glaring at Mycroft until the man leaned back in his chair, accepting John's presence.</p><p>John cleared his throat, "Let's start from the beginning," he suggested, "There were three Holmes kids…what was the age gap?"</p><p>"Seven years between Mycroft and Sherwood," Leena remarked, knowing that for certain.</p><p>"One year between Sherlock and Eurus," Mycroft finished.</p><p>"She was the younger?" Leena wanted to confirm, Mycroft nodded.</p><p>"Middle child," John murmured, "Explains a lot."</p><p>Sherlock shot him a look, though Leena chuckled lightly, continuing to card her hand through his hair in comfort, "It does," she had to admit. There were always some things he did that just didn't fit with the sociological aspect of birth order. It wasn't always the same, traits elder children developed compared to younger or middle children, or only children, but, in some psychological areas, they felt there were some things that happened as a result of order.</p><p>She'd always brushed it off as being his unique mind, that he just didn't subscribe to all that traditional nonsense, but now…with this information, it <em>was</em> a bit clearer. Sherlock didn't exhibit some signs of a youngest child, but sometimes of a middle child seeking attention that could, at times, fall more to the elder or youngest child. He never acted as though he expected Mycroft to fix his messes or felt entitled to get what he wanted, which some psychologists felt were typical of a youngest child. He could be a tad melodramatic, loved being independent, and favored alone time more than crowds, which could be more typical of a middle child.</p><p>"So did she have it too?" John continued to question Mycroft, pulling Leena's thoughts back to the present before she could spiral into comparing Sherlock to the average middle child even more.</p><p>"Have what?" the man frowned.</p><p>"The deduction thing."</p><p>"The deduction thing?"</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>Mycroft was silent a moment, before sighing, "More than you can know."</p><p>"How so?" Leena asked.</p><p>Mycroft turned to John, speaking to him first, "You realize I'm the smart one?"</p><p>"Debatable," Leena muttered under her breath, which drew a small smile from Sherlock, which she took as a victory.</p><p>"But Eurus," Mycroft turned back to them, "She was incandescent even then. Our abilities were professionally assessed more than once. I was remarkable, but Eurus was described as an era-defining genius, beyond Newton."</p><p>"Then why don't I remember her?" Sherlock repeated, "What did she do to me?" he asked, agreeing with Leena's assessment. Even though John was the Doctor, part of Leena's degree dealt with psychology and mental trauma, if SHE thought this was some sort of repressed memory of the girl, he would believe her.</p><p>"You DO remember her, in a way," Mycroft remarked, "Every choice you ever made, every path you've ever taken, the man you are today…is your memory of Eurus," he glanced at Sherlock and then explained more to Leena and John, "She was different from the beginning. She knew things she should never have known as if she was somehow aware of truths beyond the normal scope…" he shifted in his seat, almost flinching.</p><p>"What's wrong?" John asked, ever the doctor.</p><p>Mycroft sighed, "The memories are disturbing."</p><p>Leena's jaw clenched at the confirmation she heard in his voice, "How so?" she asked again, bracing herself, removing her hand from Sherlock's hair to rest on his shoulder as though to brace him for what might come next.</p><p>"They found her with a knife once. She seemed to be cutting herself. Mother and Father were terrified. They thought it was a suicide attempt. But when I asked Eurus what she was doing, she said 'I wanted to see how my muscles worked.'"</p><p>"Jesus!" John exclaimed, horrified.</p><p>"So I asked her if she felt pain, and she said…"</p><p>"Which one is pain?" Leena guessed, and Mycroft looked at her, startled at that, "Psychopathy. It can usually manifest with a high pain tolerance. Some times it seems like they can read minds, because they observe the nonverbal cues we give in our expressions, movements, and body language. They can understand emotions, even if it doesn't always register with them, which means they may lack emotional empathy. They understand pain and they use it manipulate other people. Emotional pain is complicated in terms of how they experience it, but it largely focuses on their deep desire to be loved and cared for, which is typically difficult to fulfil because of all the other traits they display and how it puts other people off."</p><p>"Yes," Mycroft swallowed, as though it were difficult for even him to admit their brilliant sister was a psychopath, but the traits Leena brought up were ones Eurus displayed to a T.</p><p>"What happened?" Sherlock breathed.</p><p>"Musgrave," Mycroft looked down.</p><p>"Musgrave?" Leena repeated, unfamiliar with the name.</p><p>"The ancestral home, where there was always honey for tea and Sherlock played among the funny gravestones," Mycroft answered.</p><p>"Funny how?" John asked before Leena could question why she didn't know that house, though Sherlock looked equally confused, like he only vaguely recollected the name.</p><p>It wasn't as alarming for her, not knowing who Eurus was, than it was for Sherlock. All she was coming to understand about Eurus, it was very likely that the girl was removed from the family before she'd even met Sherlock. If he'd forgotten her, or blocked the memory of her by then, and it seemed the family took great pains to keep him blocked, they would never have mentioned her. She would never have known there was a third child when she came around. She was angry with Mycroft for keeping this secret from Sherlock more than herself, but she WAS angry about it too.</p><p>"They weren't real. The dates were all wrong. An architectural joke which fascinated Sherlock."</p><p>Sherlock, who had been deep in thought, began to murmur, "'Help succor me now…'"</p><p>"'The East winds blow," Mycroft joined in, "Sixteen by six…and under we go,'" he looked at Sherlock, regretful and so sad, "You're starting to remember."</p><p>"Fragments," Sherlock admitted, reaching up to put a hand on Leena's, a silent promise he would tell her all he could recall soon, but for now he could bring up one thing, "I was looking for Redbeard."</p><p>"Redbeard?" John blinked, startled.</p><p>"He was my dog."</p><p>"I helped him pick it out," Leena added with a sad smile, "Redbeard II, technically. His first dog ran away and he was so sad about it when we met."</p><p>Sherlock looked up at her with a small smile, recalling that. It had always been a very tender spot for him, both Redbeards, one who ran away and the second who was put down in old age. He liked to remember only the second Redbeard as often as he could, the one Leena had gifted him, the one they raised and trained together no matter how much his father grumbled about it. When he'd been a child he liked to imagine that Redbeard ran away, and came back as a puppy so he could spend even more time with his owner. He knew it was just a fantasy of a heartbroken child, as an adult, though, he liked to remember Redbeard as just that, the dog he loved, not which Redbeard was which.</p><p>Leena blinked, tensing as though she'd worked something out and looked up at Mycroft, "No…"</p><p>He could only give her a grim nod, "Eurus took Redbeard and locked him up somewhere no one could find him. And she refused to say where he was. She'd only repeat that song as her little ritual. We begged and begged her to tell us where he was. But she said the song is the answer. But the song made no sense."</p><p>"What happened to Redbeard?" Sherlock turned to his brother, working out now what Leena had, though something niggled at the back of his mind and the deep frown on her face spoke the same concern…a missing dog would <em>not</em> have been enough to scar him so badly that he erased his sister from his memory, willingly or not.</p><p>"We never found him," Mycroft admitted, "But she started calling him 'Drowned Redbeard,' so we made our assumptions," he glanced between Leena and John, "Sherlock was traumatized. Natural, I suppose, he was, in the early days, an emotional child. But after that he was different, so changed. Never spoke of it again. In time, he seemed to forget that Eurus had ever even existed."</p><p>"No," Leena shook her head, "It wasn't <em>just</em> that. There's something else, Mycroft, tell us."</p><p>"They took her away," Mycroft began, "Because of what happened immediately afterwards. She started taking to drawing pictures of Sherlock, dead. In…many different ways, slit throat, hung, drowned, on a slab, his gravestone…mother and father were alarmed to say the least," he rubbed his hand across his eyes, "One night she started a fire…in Sherlock's room."</p><p>"Oh, my god," Leena breathed, that…that certainly <em>would</em> traumatize anyone, to have their own sister trying to murder them even once, let alone drawing pictures of different ways to do it.</p><p>"I was awake, reading, and got him out, shouted for mother and father to get Eurus…the house was ablaze by the time we got out. After that, our sister had to be taken away."</p><p>"Where?" Sherlock demanded.</p><p>"Oh, some suitable place," Mycroft scoffed, "Or so everyone thought. Not suitable enough, however. She died there."</p><p>"How?" John asked.</p><p>"She started another fire, one which she did not survive."</p><p>"Liar," Leena shook her head at him.</p><p>Sherlock nodded in agreement, both of them able to read Mycroft like a book when he did so, "This is a lie."</p><p>"Yes," he admitted, "It is also a kindness. This is the story I told our parents to spare them further pain, and to account for the absence of an identifiable body."</p><p>"And no doubt to prevent their further interference."</p><p>"Well, that too, of course. The depth of Eurus' psychosis and the extent of her abilities couldn't hope to be contained in any ordinary institution. Uncle Rudy took care of things."</p><p>Leena shook her head at that, having to look away from Mycroft and all he'd revealed in just that sentence alone. Mycroft would have been too young to have any say in Eurus being removed from the family when all this happened. But he and his Uncle Rudy had always been close and she didn't doubt he'd made a good argument for the man to step in. She was both furious and heartbroken and relieved and it was difficult to process. The idea of any child being removed from their family and locked away, it was a heartbreaking thing to imagine, and she was furious at Mycroft and Rudy for ever thinking that was a wise thing to do.</p><p>Because Mycroft made no mention at all of anyone trying to HELP Eurus before that point.</p><p>Their parents thought the girl had tried to kill herself for god's sake and there was nothing about trying to get her help? No talk of therapists to step in? Professionals to talk with her? With all of Rudy's resources, he could have found the top specialists, those with experience handling psychopathy and helping them adapt. Not every person who had the disorder was a danger or criminal or intended to harm other people. And part of her couldn't help but feel like, even as a beyond intelligent child, Eurus might not have understood or known how to express some sort of frustration she had with Sherlock. MORE should have been done to help the girl before being removed or 'killed off' by Mycroft and, it seemed, locked away in even more isolation.</p><p>...and another part of her, the part attached to Sherlock, the part that loved him more than anything, was relieved Eurus had been taken away from HIM before she could inflict more damage.</p><p>The professional part of her wanted to understand, the personal part of her wanted to blame Eurus.</p><p>She did, fully, blame Rudy for his choices, and part of her blamed Mycroft. Because once he was an adult, he could have stepped in, he could have made different decisions, helped Eurus more, but it just kept going, and Eurus kept being isolated. And she truly feared for what had become of the girl now.</p><p>"Where is she, Mycroft?" Sherlock repeated, firm and angry at the thought of Eurus being locked away and hidden from him, "Where's our sister?"</p><p>"There's a place called Sherrinford, an island. It's a secure and very secretive installation whose sole purpose is to contain what we call 'the uncontainables.' The demons beneath the road, this is where we trap them. Sherrinford is more than a prison or an asylum, it is a fortress built to keep the rest of the world safe from what is inside it. Heaven may be a fantasy for the credulous and the afraid, but I can give you a map reference for Hell," he took a breath when Sherlock shot him a glare, neither John nor Leena appearing impressed with that remark either, "That's where our sister has been since early childhood. She hasn't left, not for a single day. Whoever you both met, it can't have been her."</p><p>"You saw the footage, Mycroft," Leena began, about to remark on his reaction to seeing Faith and hearing her speak, it made sense to her now that it was more than just shock at seeing an actual person there but WHO that person was…when a loud crash, the sound of breaking glass, rang out from the kitchen.</p><p>They were all out of their seats, Leena already stepping towards the kitchen to see what it was when a buzzing noise started and a woman's voice began to sing.</p><p>"I that am lost," the voice began, and a quick glance at Mycroft told them all it was Eurus, "Oh, who will find me deep down below, the old beech tree?" they watched as a drone began to rise up from behind the small table set up there, hovering, "Help succor me now. The East Wind's blowing sixteen by six, brother, and under we go."</p><p>Mycroft's eyes widened as the drone began to drift towards them, an object set up on its back that made his heart stop, "Keep back!" he warned, his eyes shooting to Leena, the nearest to him, when she almost moved to try and grab the drone, "Keep as still as you can!"</p><p>"What is it?" John frowned, having backed up towards Sherlock, nearer the windows.</p><p>"My soul seeks," the voice continued to sing, "The shade of my willow's bloom…"</p><p>"It's a drone," Sherlock assessed.</p><p>"I think he meant what's that on top of it?" Leena remarked, eyeing the egg-like object set there, like a silver sort of grenade.</p><p>"It's a DX-707," Mycroft answered, watching as the drone hovered in the middle of the four of them, in the center of the room, "I've authorized the purchase of quite a number of these," his eyes tracked it as it began to lower onto the floor, "Colloquially it is known as 'the patience grenade.'"</p><p>"Patience?" John frowned, not liking the sound of that.</p><p>The grenade let out a soft buzzing noise and the top of it popped up, a bright red light shining from within, beeping.</p><p>"The motion sensor has activated. If any of us move, the grenade will detonate."</p><p>"How powerful?" Sherlock asked as they all froze.</p><p>"It will certainly destroy this flat and kill anyone in it. Assuming walls of reasonable strength, your neighbors should be safe, but as it's landed on the floor, I am moved to wonder if the café below is open."</p><p>"It's Sunday," Leena stated, "Closed."</p><p>"What about Mrs. Hudson?" John eyed the bauble.</p><p>Sherlock paused, listening to the faint sound of a vacuum below them, "Going by her usual routine, I estimate she has another two minutes left."</p><p>"She keeps the vacuum cleaner at the back of the flat."</p><p>"So?" Mycroft glanced at him.</p><p>"She won't be right under the blast if we wait till she's at the back of the flat," Leena spelled it out for him.</p><p>"When the vacuum stops, we give her eight seconds to get to the back of the flat," Sherlock spoke, "She's fast when she's cleaning. Then we move," he glanced at his brother, "What's the trigger response time? Once we're mobile, how long before detonation?"</p><p>"We have a maximum of three seconds to vacate the blast radius," Mycroft stated.</p><p>Leena closed her eyes for a moment, taking a breath before she opened them to look at Sherlock, "You two take the windows," she suggested, spying them within feet of them.</p><p>"And you take the stairs," Sherlock agreed, for Leena and Mycroft were nearer the door, "Help get Mrs. Hudson out too."</p><p>John glanced down, "She's further away," he noted, the noise of the vacuum moving, "She's moving to the back."</p><p>"I estimate we have a minute left," Sherlock mused, "Is a phone call possible?"</p><p>"Phone call?" Mycroft scoffed.</p><p>"John has a wife and son," Sherlock reminded the man, "He may wish to say goodbye."</p><p>Even as he spoke, his eyes were locked on Leena's. He'd asked for John because Mary wasn't there the way Leena was, Hamish was also older than Liberty, he would recognize John's voice at the very least whereas their daughter wouldn't know either of them. They had taken precautions, of course, after they had dealt with Smith. Much like he had left John a video and Leena left him one, they had made one for their daughter, kept with his parents, if anything were to happen to them. She would be able to see them say goodbye one day if they couldn't do it in person.</p><p>"I'm sorry, Doctor Watson." Mycroft spoke, "Any movement will set off the grenade. I hope you understand."</p><p>"It won't be necessary," Leena murmured, her eyes on the grenade, "We'll make it, three seconds is an eternity."</p><p>Sherlock snorted, though there was a faint quirk on his lips at her faith in this, "As we learned," he caught her eye, "Having to sit through Mycroft as Lady Bracknell."</p><p>"'The Importance of Being Earnest,'" Mycroft recalled his role in that school play, understanding now where the Oscar Wilde quote had come from, "You didn't like it."</p><p>Sherlock's face scrunched as though to say 'could have been better,' which earned a small chuckle from Mycroft.</p><p>"She's finished," Leena cut in, hearing the vacuum turn off.</p><p>Sherlock counted the eight seconds and looked at them, "Good luck," he said, but his eyes, on Mycroft for all of a moment, said another.</p><p>Mycroft gave a curt nod, not needing words to know what Sherlock was asking him, reassuring his brother he would see it done.</p><p>Sherlock took a breath, "Three, two, one…go!"</p><p>On that single word, Sherlock and John turned, making a go for the windows, ready to jump through them to the street to avoid the oncoming blast, while Mycroft and Leena turned to race for the door. Mycroft hesitated for the briefest of moments as they drew nearer, reaching out his hand to Leena's back to push her through first, leaping past the frame after her as the grenade detonated and tore the flat apart…</p><p>~8~</p><p>Everything had been chaos and confusion and a mad scramble after 221B had been utterly destroyed. Mary had been called, informed to be on watch, warned to keep near any doors and all windows closed no matter the room she entered, to not go anywhere without the children in hand. Mrs. Hudson had been hurried off to Molly's until they could fix the flat and clear it of any other threats.</p><p>And then there was the matter of getting to Sherrinford without Eurus noticing or anyone at the facility realizing. Mycroft had finally realized something <em>was</em> very wrong at the facility if that drone was able to make it there because Eurus was meant to be locked away tightly, with no access to practically anything. If she was able to get this to them, then security had been compromised and he had to see to it <em>now</em>. Neither Sherlock nor John nor Leena would allow him to go alone, Sherlock because it was his sister too, Leena her sister-in-law, and John because the woman had nearly made his child half an orphan and he wanted to make sure his wife and son were safe.</p><p>Mycroft had been promised as the godfather of their third-born child to get him to agree to their going. The second-born was already reserved for two people in America to be godparents.</p><p>Clearly he hadn't been paying attention when they had jokingly remarked about only having one child in the meeting just after they got off the plane. If they made it to two, they both doubted they'd head for three. But, they did always love making Mycroft think he was in charge.</p><p>Getting to Sherrinford without being noticed was another story, though it should never be said that the Holmes brothers weren't creative. They had made it by helicopter, a favor owed to Sherlock, to a small boat sailing near the island prison in a thick fog and boarded it, quickly taking over the ship as the pirate Sherlock often pretended to be as a child would have always dreamed to do. They took over the ship quite easily due to John's gun and the element of surprise, tied up the crew and sailed the boat straight for Sherrinford.</p><p>It had been…not quite what any of them were expecting. The way Mycroft spoke of the base, it could have been an Alcatraz, but it was quite a bit more modernized and high tech. It was a castle-like structure, but with flat areas for helicopters to use, guards everywhere, with guns, patrolling all angles. It took a bit of wiggle room to get the boat to head for the island with the island already aware of their approach on radar. But the boat was quick and they didn't need much but a diversion to keep the guards within from noticing a few odd instances.</p><p>They put the two crew, tied up, on the sand with a message for Eurus, 'Tell My Sister I'm Here' and managed to get a fair distance away, or at least Leena and John had, with Mycroft disguised as a third deckhand with a thick white beard. Sherlock, if all went to plan, would knock one of the guards out and take his place to follow them in.</p><p>As expected when they answered the radio calls warning them away from the prison, telling anyone that they were about to crash into the rocks was enough to send the entire facility on alert. They hadn't wanted Eurus to know they were coming until they were already there. Guards swarmed the beach, quickly finding the two tied men, and then 'just so happening' to stumble upon John and Leena as they 'fought off' an angry captain a short distance away, the man irate that they'd 'stolen his boat.' They were quickly led away, right into the base.</p><p>If there was one way to get to your enemy, it was by being captured.</p><p>Oldest trick in the book.</p><p>Leena couldn't help but think Mycroft needed better men on this island if they fell for that so easily.</p><p>It was as they expected though, being led though the very high tech facility and to an interrogation room, a 'guard' following the governor of the island in when the man finally came to question them.</p><p>"This is a mistake!" the 'captain' began the second the door was open, "I'm the victim 'ere. These two stole my boat!" he pointed at John and Leena, "They're pirates!"</p><p>"Yeah, we really are," John shrugged as Leena crossed her arm over her sling and nodded.</p><p>"Please, sit down," the governor tried to calm the angry fisherman.</p><p>"I don't even know who they are!" the man continued to rant, but did sit.</p><p>"He's Doctor John Watson, formerly of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers," the Governor explained, "And she's Jacqueline Holmes, wife of Mr. Sherlock Holmes."</p><p>"The detective?" the fisherman frowned.</p><p>The governor ignored him, turning to look at the two others, "What are you doing here?"</p><p>"It's a hospital," John shrugged again, "Any work?"</p><p>"It's not a hospital."</p><p>"I'm here to meet my sister-in-law," Leena offered, giving the man a sly smile that set him immediately on edge.</p><p>Without looking away from them the Governor held out a pass to the guard behind him, unwilling to risk Dr. Watson attacking him from behind, "I want eyes on Eurus Holmes. Go straight to the Special Unit, deploy Green and Yellow Shift on my authority."</p><p>"Sir," the guard nodded, his north Irish accent thick as he took the card and left, buzzing himself in and out of the room and walking off with a limp.</p><p>"I'm sparing your blushes because we're supposed to be on the same side," the governor moved to sit across from them, though he spoke more to John, "And frankly, this is embarrassing."</p><p>"Ooh, doing a cavity search?" John asked, unperturbed.</p><p>"My husband and brother-in-law will object to that," Leena remarked.</p><p>The governor narrowed his eyes at her and turned to the fisherman who was keeping his head low, "The true art of disguise, according to your famous friend, is not being looked at," he eyed the man, "But I am looking at you, aren't I, Mr. Holmes?"</p><p>"Yes, you are," the man spoke, his accent different, more south-west and well educated, which made the governor smile, thinking he'd caught them out.</p><p>"You do understand that was the point though, yes?" Leena asked as the fisherman stood and began to take his hat off.</p><p>"See, you should have been looking at the guy you just gave your pass to," John agreed, when the man pulled his beard off to reveal Mycroft and not Sherlock stood before him.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Sherlock kept up the ruse, limping down the halls as quick as he could, knowing the others would only be able to hide Mycroft for so long as the trick was rather obvious. He swiped the card through a reader, entering the lift it revealed and heading down into the depths of hell.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Leena rolled her eyes as Mycroft stood before the two way mirror, fixing his tie, having worn his typical suit attire under the fisherman's yellow jacket, sans suit jacket, the makeup and prosthetics now removed from his face, "That's the trouble with uniforms and name badges," he remarked, "People stop looking at faces. You'd be better off with clown outfits," he turned around to glare at the governor, "At least they'd be satirically relevant."</p><p>"Oh, you'll find the real Landers on the north shore, tied up with two others," John spoke to the startled governor.</p><p>"Two others?" the man gaped.</p><p>"Mycroft's been cheating on his diet," Leena whispered loudly, "Took some time to find the right waistband."</p><p>"This is insane!" the governor leapt to his feet, "This is unnecessary!"</p><p>"No, your security is compromised and we don't know who to trust," John countered.</p><p>"And that justifies dressing up?"</p><p>"Yes it does!" Mycroft snapped, angrier than even Leena had ever heard him, turning to glare at the governor, "It justifies dressing up or any damned thing I say it does. Now, listen to me: for your own physical safety do not speak, do not indulge in any non-verbal signals suggestive of internal thought. If the safety of my sister is compromised, if the security of my sister is compromised, if the incarceration of my sister is compromised, in short, if I find <em>any</em> indication my sister has left this island at <em>any</em> time, I swear to you, <em>you</em> will not."</p><p>Leena let out a low whistle that had Mycroft's lip quirking, before he focused on the governor again, "Say thank you to Doctor Watson."</p><p>"Why?" the governor frowned.</p><p>"He talked me out of Lady Bracknell. This could have been very different."</p><p>"Very disturbing, too," Leena agreed, recalling that performance with a shudder.</p><p>Mycroft turned his head and touched his right ear, to the communication device he'd linked to his brother's, "Are you in?" he called to Sherlock.</p><p>"Just arriving at the Secure Unit," Sherlock answered, "Explain."</p><p>"A prison within a prison. Eurus must be allowed the strict minimum of human interaction."</p><p>"Why?"</p><p>"Since you're determined to meet her, you're about to find out."</p><p>Leena frowned, looking at Mycroft for that remark as he kept proving, over and over, why he wasn't the smart one. And not just about the decision to completely isolate his own sister in such a way. Human interaction was essential for development, for the hope to even begin to breed empathy and understanding. Cutting her off, from such a young age? It was almost like Mycroft had been hoping to exacerbate her psychopathy. She had to shake her head at that decision, so many mistakes by people who claimed to know what they were doing but had no idea. This wasn't just about Eurus's isolation, but how Mycroft was setting Sherlock up for this meeting.</p><p>The smart one would have warned Sherlock exactly about all of this before he went down there. The smart one would have explained how psychopaths work, how the mind riddled with psychosis operated, especially one deprived of all that interaction for years on end. The smart one would have given him tips and tricks and suggestions on how to protect himself from interacting with a psychopath so as not to be fooled by those intentionally trying to manipulate other people the way she was sure Eurus would.</p><p>Mycroft had done none of that.</p><p>…good thing she had.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Sherlock reached the far end of the corridor the lift took him to, stopping between two guards, noticing the sound of someone playing the violin even through the thick doors of what had to be Eurus's cell. He kept his expression blank even as he recognized the song, the one that had been echoing in his memories, the song Mycroft said Eurus sang as the answer to where Redbeard was.</p><p>"Eyes on Eurus Holmes," he spoke to the guards, slinging a rifle off his shoulder to hand to the guards, "Governor's orders."</p><p>~8~</p><p>"Answer yes or no," Mycroft spoke as he stepped towards the governor, now wearing a jacket with is suit, "Has there ever been, against my express instructions, any attempt at a psychiatric evaluation of Eurus Holmes?"</p><p>Leena shot Mycroft a narrow-eyed look for that, only able to assume that, since he'd taken over from his Uncle Rudy, that that was a standing order. She had to hope that, at some point, someone had done some sort of evaluation of Eurus, otherwise how would anyone know or work out how to help her? She wanted to believe Mycroft wasn't just determining he knew best and ignoring expert evaluations, but, given all she'd seen and heard so far, she doubted it. If no one evaluated her then no plan could be made to help her adapt or learn how to live in the real world.</p><p>It made her all the more certain she and Sherlock would NEVER have a third child, if Mycroft could treat his own sister in such a way and, from what it appeared, not get her any help or even try to help her learn since she was a girl.</p><p>Now...now she feared it was too late, too long, for Eurus to have any hope of any sort of rehabilitation. After so many years she would be too institutionalized, too developed, to really be able to change without near constant work and help and with the woman trying to kill them all she doubted Eurus would have any inclination or desire to change either.</p><p>And that broke her heart, because now she would have to be professional, she couldn't let herself be personal about this. She had to be objective, she had to look at Eurus and not see a Holmes or Sherlock's sister, but an unsub to be dealt with and investigated. She couldn't afford to let her emotions interfere with this, she would need to be clinical, distant, detached because...she doubted Mycroft or Sherlock would be able to.</p><p>"Yes," the governor admitted.</p><p>"I presume the tapes are in my office?" he asked, heading for the door.</p><p>"Your office?"</p><p>"Cast your mind back. It used to be yours," Mycroft remarked, John and Leena following close behind.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Sherlock took a breath as he stepped onto a marked area of the floor two feet in front of the door, allowing the scanner above him to look for anything. He glanced over at a man by a desk, running the scan, and then to the door where another guard was standing.</p><p>"You 'aven't been down 'ere before, 'ave you?" the man eyed Sherlock, "'Silence of the Lambs,' basically."</p><p>"You...what?"</p><p>"Keep your distance," the guard warned, "Stay at least three feet away from the glass an' all that."</p><p>Sherlock frowned at how much like a zoo that sounded, glancing up when the light of the scanner turned green, allowing him clearance even though the man at the desk was hardly paying attention, his head nodding as he listened to music through his own headphones, "Why the headphones?"</p><p>"She doesn't stop playin', sometimes for weeks."</p><p>"Beautiful."</p><p>"Kills you in the end."</p><p>"Aye. Still beautiful, though," Sherlock stepped forward when the door opened, allowing him into another lift.</p><p>The second the door shut behind him, he began pulling off his outer clothing, which had been hiding his normal suit, his white shirt and jacket, pulling the beanie off his head and leaving it behind when the doors opened before him.</p><p>He stepped out, observing the room and the woman within.</p><p>It was sparse, three glass panels blocking the entrance to the rest of the cell, each with a notice stenciled into the glass at the base, sides, and tops of it, warning to keep three feet away. Beyond the glass was a circular room, grey paneled, white lights above. The floor was grey save for a strip of white down the middle. There was a bed to the side of the room, a desk and chair fastened to the wall on the other side. No other furniture to be seen.</p><p>Right in the middle of the room though, was someone who could only be Eurus. She was wearing a white shirt and pants of medical style, with white flats, her black, wavy hair hanging freely down her back to the middle of it, with a violin in hand as she played a different song this time.</p><p>He took another step forward, the lift shutting behind him with enough noise for Eurus to pause in her playing, before resuming once more, her own song again, her back still to him.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Leena frowned as she stood in the main office of the base, steeling herself as she eyed the video footage playing on the screen of Eurus speaking to someone, there were four angles of the footage, the assessment Mycroft had forbid to happen. John was a few feet beside her, though he was turned to face both her and Mycroft, as he sat at the desk with the governor before him.</p><p>"Why am I here?" the Eurus on the footage was asking.</p><p>"Why do you think you're here?" a man offscreen countered.</p><p>"No one ever tells me."</p><p>"Liar," Leena murmured to herself, utilizing every facet of her training, degree, and experience to profile Eurus Holmes, noticing every detail she possibly could.</p><p>Behind her, though she couldn't see, Mycroft let out a breath, having heard her. It was a danger to speak with Eurus, he knew it best, that anyone who did was compromised, and that included allowing the viewing of footage and other recorded material. He had spent <em>years</em> working on himself so he could confront her without falling prey to her schemes and words. He would never say it out loud, but he was very relieved to see Leena's own training was making her as capable of identifying the manipulations as he was.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Sherlock eyed the woman even as she just kept playing, no other reaction besides the minor pause she'd given. He took a step towards her, his foot crossing a line on the floor that marked 3 feet, and she began to make a screeching noise on the violin, back and forth, over and over, till he stepped back to where he'd been, and she continued as though nothing had happened.</p><p>~8~</p><p>"Am I being punished?" Eurus asked, in the footage.</p><p>"You've been bad," the offscreen man remarked.</p><p>"There's no such thing as 'bad.'"</p><p>"What about good?"</p><p>"Good and bad are fairytales," Eurus stated, the footage switching to a closeup of her face, her eyes staring ahead, no meaningful expression to be seen, just as though she were stating fact she was bored of repeating, "We have evolved to attach an emotional significance to what is nothing more than the survival strategy of the pack animal. We are conditioned to invest divinity in utility. Good isn't really good, evil isn't really wrong, and bottoms aren't really pretty. You are a prisoner of your own meat."</p><p>"Why aren't you?"</p><p>"I'm too clever."</p><p>"So says every great villain," Leena remarked, which made John quirk a smile too for how true that was and also to help him relax from how tense he'd been, on edge about the danger present. If Leena could manage even a small joke, he felt at least a little better.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Sherlock remained silent and still, hearing Eurus come to the end of her tune, watching as she lowered her bow and the violin, but didn't turn to face him, all she did was ask a question that came through the speakers, "Did you bring it?"</p><p>"I'm sorry?" he asked.</p><p>"My hairband. Did you bring it like I asked?"</p><p>"I'm not one of the…I don't work here."</p><p>"My special hairband."</p><p>"I'm not one of your doctors."</p><p>"The one I made you steal, from Mummy," Eurus huffed, sounding remarkably annoyed as she finally turned to him, "It was the last thing I said to you, remember, the day they took me away."</p><p>"No," he shook his head, recalling what Leena had said about conversations with psychopaths, it is safest to turn the conversation back to them, not let it linger on you. Once it became personal, a person was in danger of revealing too much of themselves to be used and manipulated.</p><p>"No?"</p><p>"No, we've spoken since then. You came round to my flat a few weeks back, you pretended to be a woman called Faith Smith. We had chips."</p><p>"Does this mean you didn't bring my hairband?"</p><p>"How did you manage to get out of this place?" he got back on topic, "How did you do that?"</p><p>"Easy. Look at me."</p><p>"I am looking at you."</p><p>She tilted her head, observing him, "You can't see it, can you? You try and try but you just can't see, you can't look."</p><p>"See what?"</p><p>She held up the violin more, "What do you think?"</p><p>"Beautiful."</p><p>"You're not <em>looking</em> at it," she accused.</p><p>"I meant your playing."</p><p>"Oh, the music," she lowered the violin and looked at it, seemingly confused by the topic, "I never know if it's beautiful or not, only if it's right."</p><p>"Often they're the same thing."</p><p>"If they're not always the same thing, what's the point in beauty?" she looked back at him, and held the violin up once more, "Look at the violin."</p><p>Sherlock shook his head, "I need to know how you escaped."</p><p>"Look at the violin," she insisted.</p><p>Sherlock sighed but turned his attention to it instead of her, Leena had warned never take your eye off the psychopath, but if she was behind the glass, he assumed he was safe for the time being, "It's a Stradivarius."</p><p>"It's a gift."</p><p>"Who from?"</p><p>"Me," she walked across her room to a hatch set in the wall, a door opening on her side allowing her to place the object into it, which revolved around to his side the moment the door was closed.</p><p>He eyed her a moment when she moved back to the middle of the room and stared at him expectantly. He went over and picked up the violin and bow from the hatch, returning to his original spot as well, "Why?"</p><p>"You play, don't you?" she said simply.</p><p>"How did you know?"</p><p>"How did I know?" she repeated, "I taught you, don't you remember? How can you not remember that?"</p><p>"Eurus, I don't remember you at all," he repeated, tensing when she began to smile. He assumed Mycroft had informed her of that, or she'd gleamed it off of John not having any idea who 'Sherlock's secret brother' could be. He felt say stating it, if she already knew then it was nothing NEW to learn. But the smile, the way she seemed to take it as confirmation, worried him.</p><p>"Interesting. Mycroft told me you'd rewritten your memories, he didn't tell me you'd written me out completely."</p><p>"What do you mean, 'rewritten?'" he repeated. He knew he'd repressed some, erased them, clearly, but rewriting meant there was still something of the original there…he just had no idea what those original parts were.</p><p>Eurus seemed to read his expression, "You still don't know about Redbeard, do you?" she asked, before grinning slowly, "Oh. This is going to be such a good day."</p><p>Sherlock took a breath and schooled his expressions. Another warning from Leena, mind your emotional reactions around a psychopath, they will pick up on the subtlest things and appear as though reading your mind, using it against you.</p><p>He had to stay focused.</p><p>...it was just hard, because that woman in front of him wasn't just a psychopath but his sister and he still couldn't remember a thing about her.</p><p>~8~</p><p>"She smiles at you when you come home," Eurus continued to speak on the footage, nodding sharply, "Like a reflex."</p><p>"What's she doing?" John asked Leena as he came to stand beside her, noticing that peculiar quirk had happened before, "Why does she keep doing that?"</p><p>"She's confirming she's right," Leena assessed, "Whenever he reacts to what she says, she nods, files it away to use later."</p><p>"Everyone we sent in there…" the governor spoke behind them, to Mycroft, "It…it's hard to describe. It's…it's like she…"</p><p>"Recruited them," Mycroft finished.</p><p>"Smiling is advertising," Eurus spoke, "Smiling is happiness," and nodded at the end.</p><p>"Enslaved them," the governor corrected.</p><p>"She's been capable of that since she was five," Mycroft huffed, "She's an adult now. I warned you, I <em>ordered</em> you."</p><p>"She's clinically unique," the governor defended with a sigh, "We had to <em>try</em>."</p><p>"At what cost?"</p><p>"Happiness is a pop song," Eurus continued to identify, "Sadness is a poem."</p><p>"What cost?"</p><p>"And there," Leena murmured to John, "She's reciting what emotions she should display when those events come up, to better blend in with others, fool them into not noticing she doesn't actually feel lit."</p><p>John ran a hand down his face, shifting, uncomfortable. He knew sociopaths, Sherlock claimed to be one enough for him to have researched it, but this...this was on another level.</p><p>"Tell me the worst thing that has happened," Mycroft demanded of the governor.</p><p>"She kept suggesting to Doctor Taylor that he should kill his family," the govern said, causing John to spin around and gape at the man.</p><p>"And?" Mycroft prompted.</p><p>"He said it was like an earworm, couldn't get her out of his head."</p><p>"That's not what he's asking, and you know it," Leena called out, turning just enough to look over her shoulder at him for a moment, eyeing him closely, "Did he or did he not go home and kill his family?"</p><p>The governor swallowed hard, "He did," he rubbed his head, "And then himself."</p><p>"Are you going to cry?" Eurus's voice continued, "It's ok if you cry."</p><p>"I don't need to cry," the man on the footage defended.</p><p>"I can help you cry."</p><p>Leena shook her head, letting out a huff of air, they were in very big trouble, because the voice, the person speaking to Eurus…now that she wasn't looking at the footage and focused on Eurus, she could recognize who it was and it was <em>not</em> good.</p><p>~8~</p><p>"Play for me," Eurus called, nodding at the violin.</p><p>"I need to know how you got out of here," Sherlock insisted instead, being firm. He had to know, because if she was as much a threat as Mycroft feared…his entire family was in danger and he'd already sworn he would not allow anyone, <em>anyone</em> at all, to harm his family.</p><p>It was like Leena said, she wouldn't let anyone hurt her family, not even her family.</p><p>Another tip, since he had a personal connection to Eurus. Don't treat her like his sister, not yet at least, look at it from a very clinical lens, look at it as though she were any other psychopath, emotional ties and revealing them were what psychopaths thrived on and he was trying very hard not to allow himself to be manipulated into causing his family harm.</p><p>He feared he was failing though, because he looked at her and he saw a lonely woman, and he knew his brother locked her away, because of what she tried to do to HIM, and he felt like this was his fault. He could see something off about her, the detached way she spoke, how she didn't seem to really care about anything, but actually seeing her...it was harder and harder not to see this as the result of her isolation, as the result of HIM.</p><p>"You know already," Eurus countered, "Look at me. Look and play."</p><p>Sherlock had no qualms with the first part, he wasn't about to let the woman out of his sight if he could help it, so he lifted the violin and began to play Bach…</p><p>"No, not Bach," Eurus cut in with a sneering scoff after only a handful of notes, "You clearly don't understand it. Play you."</p><p>"Me?"</p><p>"You."</p><p>Sherlock paused to consider it, his mind going immediately to Leena, to Liberty, to the song he had composed for them both though he hadn't had a chance to play Liberty's to her and decided against it. He would not give Eurus more ammunition if he could help it. He may fail at not seeing her as his sister, but he wouldn't just put his family out there like that. He thought back to Leena's song though, before he had adapted it, when she had thought it was about Irene Adler, and felt that would be safest to use for now, a song he didn't care about thought to be for a woman he hardly noticed.</p><p>"Oh!" Eurus picked up on something about it though, "Have you had sex?" before she scoffed, "Well, of course you have, daddy."</p><p>"Why do you ask?" he eyed her, continuing to play, being very careful not to react to the fact that she knew about Liberty, for clearly she already knew about Leena. He was trying very hard to keep those emotional reactions under lock and key, not responding the way Eurus might hope at her prodding.</p><p>"I've had sex," she offered conversationally.</p><p>"How?"</p><p>"One of the nurses got careless. I liked it. Messy, though. People are so...breakable."</p><p>Sherlock filed that away, there was a way to get into the cell that nurses had access to…which meant there was a way <em>out</em> of the cell or a way to let her out. Which meant she either stole the access to get out or the nurse, someone in the facility LET her out.</p><p>"I take it he didn't consent," he remarked, testing her answer for whether it was stolen or released.</p><p>"He?"</p><p>"She?"</p><p>"Afraid I didn't notice in the heat of the moment and afterwards…" she shrugged, "Well, you couldn't really tell. Is that vibrato or is your hand shaking?"</p><p>He smirked, "Vibrato," he answered, lowering the violin smoothly, not a shake or tremor to be found, and he took a small amount of pride in how Eurus's lips quirked down, displeased with that and tried not to look at it as a brother irritating his little sister.</p><p>~8~</p><p>"I warned you explicitly!" Mycroft snapped as he stood from the desk, glowering down at the governor as he fell into one of the seats, "No one was to talk to her alone."</p><p>"YOU spoke to her," the man pointed out.</p><p>"I know what I'm doing!"</p><p>"You even brought her a visitor on Christmas Day."</p><p>"I took a calculated risk," Mycroft defended that quietly.</p><p>Lenna turned to face him, "What gift?" she asked, a pit forming in her stomach. The governor wouldn't have brought up this if it wasn't something that would cast blame on Mycroft or at least make the man feel less holier than thou.</p><p>"You gave her a Christmas present," the governor ignored her, focusing on Mycroft, "Remember her Christmas present?"</p><p>"I am aware of the dangers Eurus poses, and equipped to deal with them!" Mycroft said instead.</p><p>"What dangers?" John cut in.</p><p>Mycroft turned to him, "Eurus doesn't just talk to people. She…reprograms them. Anyone who spends time with her is automatically compromised."</p><p>"I'm only trying to help you," the footage continued, "We can help each other. Helping someone…" she nodded, "Is the best way you can help yourself."</p><p>"I don't trust you," the man off to the side stated.</p><p>Leena took a deep breath through her nose, "Compromised, you say?"</p><p>"Jesus!" John realized, "Sherlock's down there!"</p><p>"He's fine, John," Leena reassured him, turning back to watch the footage, "Unlike the 'smart one' over there, I actually prepped him. Psychopathy 101. And speaking of," she turned around once more to face them, "Do you know, what someone with actual training can do, when faced with a psychopath?" she looked at the men, "<em>Listen</em>," she said, her gaze turned to Mycroft, "Because Eurus isn't the only voice in this session," she reminded the man, "And whoever's evaluating her, is alone with her, and compromised…" before she turned her sights on the governor, "Aren't you, David?"</p><p>~8~</p><p>"So clearly you remember me," Sherlock surmised as he observed Eurus.</p><p>"I remember everything," she said, taking a step towards the glass, "Every single thing. You just need a big enough hard drive. Let's continue," she stopped two feet from the glass, "Did they tell you to keep three feet from the glass?"</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>"Be naughty. Step closer."</p><p>"Why?"</p><p>"Do it. Step closer."</p><p>"Tell me what you remember and I will."</p><p>Eurus considered that, "You, me, and Mycroft," she sighed at the memory, "Mycroft was quite clever. He could understand things if you went a bit slow but you…" she smiled at him, "You were my favorite."</p><p>Sherlock nodded and took a step towards the glass, seeing she'd accepted his quid pro quo offer, he stepped closer for each question she answered, "Why was I your favorite?"</p><p>"'Cause I could make you laugh," she said simply, taking a step to mimic his, "I loved it when you laughed. Once I made you laugh all night. I thought you were going to burst. I was so happy…" she eyed him as he took another step, "Then Mummy and Daddy had to stop me, of course."</p><p>"Why?"</p><p>She sighed, stepping closer, "Well, turns out I got it wrong. Apparently, you were screaming."</p><p>Sherlock kept his expression blank, "Why was I screaming?" but the look she gave him, as tough it should be obvious, told him the answer, "Redbeard," he eyed her, "I remember Redbeard."</p><p>"Do you, now?" she taunted, taking a step.</p><p>"Tell me what I don't know," he demanded, taking the final step to the edge of the glass.</p><p>Because he was getting it now, something about Redbeard was important, and he was missing something. Maybe if he knew what she had done to the dog...maybe it would tell him just how far gone her psychopathy had been as a child. Maybe this was her way of getting Mycroft to let her out. If she hadn't actually done anything to Redbeard...Mycroft would never believe her, but he WOULD believe Sherlock. Mycroft would also never believe him if Eurus just said it, HE would have to remember on his own.</p><p>He swallowed hard, trying to keep himself from getting too far into that thought, too emotionally invested in helping his sister. Mycroft would not have done all his, locked her away, if something truly bad hadn't happened to Redbeard, if she hadn't been a true threat to his life. He had to keep that in mind, his family was at risk.</p><p>"Touch the glass," she ordered instead.</p><p>~8~</p><p>"Oh my god," John breathed, staring at the director, getting what Leena meant even when Mycroft seemed slow to realize.</p><p>"You have no idea how I could help," Eurus's voice spoke behind them, "Bring me your wife. I want to meet her."</p><p>Leena held up a finger for silence, and the man's voice was clear through the room, matching the director's clearly, "I don't need your help."</p><p>~8~</p><p>Sherlock remained cautious even standing so near the glass, watching Eurus, "Redbeard was my dog. I know what happened to Redbeard."</p><p>Yes, he had to remember that. He could not allow him to believe something different happened than her drowning his pet. The moment he truly questioned her, doubted Mycroft, would be the moment he'd fallen for her manipulations.</p><p>"Oh, Sherlock, you know nothing," the condescension was evident in her voice, "Touch the glass, and I'll tell you the truth," she moved to lift her hand as well, "I'll touch it too, if you're scared."</p><p>Another tactic of the psychopath, wound your pride, make you feel as though you had to prove yourself.</p><p>Now he just had to decide if it was worth the risk to make her think she'd succeeded.</p><p>~8~</p><p>"I can fix her for you," Eurus's voice continued on the video, "And then I'll give you her straight back, good as new. I promise."</p><p>John turned towards the footage when the man's voice spoke again, "That's all? What you're proposing is not…it's not right."</p><p>He frowned, glaring at the director, "That's your voice, isn't it?"</p><p>Mycroft tensed, straightening, turning to the footage himself, Eurus speaking, "Do you really? Do you trust her?"</p><p>"You've got to stop saying these things," and there it was, it truly was the governor's voice.</p><p>"So you're compromised," Leena shook her head at the governor, "Which means Eurus is in charge of her own prison now."</p><p>The governor, now caught, leapt to his feet, "I'm sorry," he spoke, genuinely sounding upset, even as he grabbed a remote from his pocket, "Very, very sorry!" and pressed it, triggering an alarm to sound, armed guards running into the room, aiming their guns at the three of them.</p><p>Leena let out a sharp breath as they were forced to raise their arms in surrender, "Last time I'm ever trusting your word, Mycroft," she muttered, cursing herself. She had believed him when he said it was secure and that the best, most trusted men were in place to monitor the prison. She would have been looking for signs of Eurus's manipulations higher up had he just been honest with them about the extent of Eurus's sway and abilities from the start, if he hadn't been so sure and certain everything was in place and that Eurus had just manipulated someone on the outside to send her 'gifts' to 221B.</p><p>~8~</p><p>"You think it's a trick," Eurus deduced as she observed Sherlock's hesitation, "You look so…unsure. You're not used to being unsure, are you?"</p><p>"It's more common than you'd think," he remarked. She'd already seen it, gleamed it, denying it would make it worse. He just...wasn't as unsure as she might think him, or, at least, the reasons behind why he was unsure.</p><p>"Look at you," Eurus breathed, wiggling her fingers in a reminder of her request, "The man who sees through everything…is exactly the man who doesn't notice…"</p><p>Sherlock took a slow breath and began to lift his hand towards the glass. He knew a split second before he should have touched it that here was no glass. The human body radiated heat, even in the fingertips, his own had picked up on the encroaching heat and the lack of coolness one would feel off glass the nearer it got. So when Eurus not only touched his fingers with her own, but pushed them further to link their hands together, he was sure she meant her 'mock surprise' to be more taunting than it was.</p><p>"When there's nothing to see through," she finished, "Do you see how it was done? I know you like explanations."</p><p>A quick glance at the glass, at the etched warnings near the bottom told him how it was done. The glass had been cut away except for the area around the warnings, to keep them upright and fixed in place as though the rest of the glass was still there. One would see the warnings and automatically think the rest of the glass it was set in was still there, when it wasn't.</p><p>"Signs," he responded easily, "You suspended the signs."</p><p>"And my voice?" she smirked, it was still sounding through the speakers above, "Throat mic. Puts me through the speakers," there was a faint clicking noise, likely one of the guards on the outside turning the mic off for her so she could speak normally, "Don't you think it's clever? Simple but clever?"</p><p>"Transparent, really."</p><p>Eurus tilted her head, she had expected fear, shock, awe, but he was…just standing there. Well, that wasn't any fun at all.</p><p>"Well, you do keep asking me how I got out of here," she taunted, pulling her hand back, let's see if she couldn't inspire true fear, "Like this."</p><p>Without warning she slammed the heels of both hands against his temples, sending him falling backwards onto the floor before she leapt over the glass and landed on top of him. She screeched and shouted, alternating between strangling him with her hands and pressing her arm onto his throat.</p><p>"Get in here, all of you!" she called out to the guards beyond, knowing they would not enter or stop her unless she ordered them to. They were such good boys, so well trained, "Stop me killing him!"</p><p>On her command the doors opened and two guards rushed in to find her pinning his arms down with a hand and a foot, her other arm now firmly on his throat, choking him.</p><p>She smiled, looking up at them, "No, no," she changed her mind, "Stop me in a minute," before screaming in her brother's face as she waited for him to black out.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Leena glared at the guards as they led her, John, and Mycroft down the halls. While her arm had been fixed and begun healing, it was still very tender, but the guards had no concern for it, gripping both of hers to keep her from trying to get away. John, however, had much better luck, kicking the ankle of one man escorting him and using his release to headbutt the other. Mycroft tried to struggle his way out of the hold, using John's attack and escape to the stairs as a distraction, but he couldn't manage it.</p><p>While the guards holding her were looking to John, she stomped her one foot on the nearest guard's shoe and elbowed him in the nose with her good arm when he flinched forward. She spun away from him, towards the other guard trying to keep his grip on her and managed to grab his handgun from the holster at his waist, lifting it to his head, not needing to keep a grip on him to ensure he didn't move now that there was a weapon aimed at him.</p><p>She tensed though, when the alarm changed, and a very familiar voice, <em>Moriarty</em>, began to speak, "Red alert! Red alert! Big, bad, bouncy, red alert! Klingons attacking lower decks! Also, cowboys in black hats, and Darth Vader!"</p><p>"What?" she breathed, her gaze flickering to Mycroft, who appeared grim.</p><p>"Don't be alarmed! I'm here now! I'm here now! Did you miss me? Did you miss me? Miss me? Miss me? Miss me? Miss me? Miss me? Miss me?"</p><p>"Mycroft!" she snapped at him, but he could only look away. Her own gaze shot upwards, hearing a thump near the top of the stairs and hesitated. A moment later two guards were dragging John, unconscious, down them, the two he had taken down, now recovered, and turning their rifles on her.</p><p>She let out a huff, blowing a piece of hair that had fallen over her eye out of the way, before stepping back and lowering the gun, putting it on the ground and kicking it over to the guards. The one she'd tried to keep hostage merely turned and grabbed her bad arm even more tightly, jerking her to the side to lead her away with the others.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Leena let out a breath of relief when she saw John starting to blink away on the cot he'd been dumped on. Granted, she was more grateful Sherlock had woken before, giving her the fright he had. John had been knocked out with a knock to the head, Sherlock had nearly been strangled judging by the red marks across his neck. Oxygen deprivation could be even worse than a bump on the head. He'd woken though, to her delight, and had immediately pulled her into a tight hug, making sure she was alright while Mycroft looked after John for them, giving them a moment.</p><p>She was still in his arms, pressed to his chest, the confrontation with his sister seemed to have shaken him up somewhat, he was taking comfort in her being there. Because, truly, out of all of them, she was the one most equipped and best trained in identifying and engaging with a psychopath. Her tips and the advice she'd given him could only go so far for someone untrained as he was, no matter the impressiveness of his brain, and with the relation he had to the psychopath, the shock of her being his sister, he knew he hadn't managed as well as he would have if it had been anyone else. He would rather have her beside him, able to assist him handling Eurus than try to work it out on his own, they were a <em>team</em>.</p><p>He solved the crime and deduced the victim, she handled working out the criminal.</p><p>It was just…this was the first time the criminal was a member of his family. But he knew Leena could distance herself in such a situation, she would look at Eurus from the lens of 'psychopath' and 'unsub.'</p><p>"How are you, John?" Leena called over, drawing Sherlock's attention as he'd closed his eyes for a few minutes.</p><p>He winced as he sat up on the bed, reaching out to touch the back of his head as Mycroft stepped away to the other side of the room, "Bit of a lump."</p><p>"True dat," Sherlock joked, "But you have your uses."</p><p>Leena took a breath and pulled away from Sherlock, crossing her good arm across her bad one. The guards had yanked the sling off, apparently thinking it could be used as some sort of weapon, which left it feeling very tender and sore. She looked around at the cell, trying to spot a way out. According to Sherlock, Eurus's cell had the glass cut out so she could enter or go as she pleased, this cell, while similar in how he described it, had the glass in place, they were trapped. Her, Sherlock, John, Mycroft…and the governor, who was sitting on the other side of the room on the floor.</p><p>"Did you see your sister?" John asked, getting up.</p><p>"Yes," Sherlock nodded.</p><p>"How was that?"</p><p>"Family's always difficult."</p><p>"She tried to strangle him," Leena added.</p><p>"Apparently she was very cross I didn't bring her a hairband."</p><p>"Is this an occasion for banter?" Mycroft cut in, his lips pursed thin, not seeing the point in trying to make light of such a severely dangerous situation.</p><p>John opened his mouth to ask another question, when a ringing phone sounded over the speakers and changed course, "Are we phoning someone?"</p><p>"Apparently," Sherlock tensed, this was the first sound they'd heard since they all arrived in the cell.</p><p>"What's he doing here?" John nodded towards the governor.</p><p>"As he was told," Leena shrugged, "As I said, Eurus is in control. She wants him here, so he's here."</p><p>"Help me!" a voice suddenly called out, a little girl, clearly in distress, clearly scared, on the verge of tears, "Please, I'm on a plane and everyone's asleep! Help me!"</p><p>The lights of the cell turned red, and Moriarty's voice echoed above them, "Hello. My name's Jim Moriarty. Welcome…to the final problem."</p><p>"It's ok," Sherlock reassured them all when the lights turned white once more, "He's dead."</p><p>"He doesn't sound dead," John grumbled.</p><p>"It's a recording," Leena spoke, moments before the lights went red and Moriarty's voice said much the same, "This is a recorded announcement."</p><p>"Please say hullo to some very old friends of mine," Moriarty's voice continued, this time his face appearing on a monitor near the lift.</p><p>"Hello?" the little girls poke, "I can hear you talking. Please help me! I'm on a plane and it's going to crash!"</p><p>"What is this?" Mycroft snapped as the lights became white, "We can't do this!"</p><p>"Do shut up, dear," Sherlock huffed at him.</p><p>"Is someone there?" the little girl called.</p><p>"Is this supposed to be a game?" Mycroft continued.</p><p>"Be quiet," Sherlock ordered him.</p><p>"Please help me!" the girl shouted.</p><p>Leena reached out to touch Sherlock's arm, looking up as she spoke to the girl, "Hello, dear. Right, I need you to stay calm. What's your name, sweetheart?"</p><p>"I'm not supposed to tell my name to strangers."</p><p>"You're a very good girl then. Shall I tell you mine? We won't be strangers then…"</p><p>Before another word could be spoken there was a click, and static played out.</p><p>Leena frowned at the sound, the call had either cut off...or been cut off.</p><p>Across from them, on the other side of the glass, the monitor flickered, changing to show an image of pouring water before Eurus appeared, smiling at them, "Oh dear. We seem to have lost the connection."</p><p>"How have you done this?" Mycroft demanded, seeing the feed was live, that Eurus was sitting in the director's office, on a chair behind his desk, "How is any of this possible?"</p><p>"You put me in here, Mycroft," she nearly snapped, the smile falling from her face, "You brought me my treats."</p><p>"What treats?" John frowned at Mycroft.</p><p>"The footage," Leena surmised, "The recordings. Moriarty was younger than when we encountered him."</p><p>If Eurus wasn't allowed anything, as per Mycroft's own words, and Sherlock's assessment that she only had a violin…and she had access to this footage from so long ago…she had to have been given either the recordings…or Moriarty himself.</p><p>She knew Mycroft had basically sold out Sherlock by talking to Moriarty about the man, in order to get information from him…but he wouldn't do this…would he?</p><p>Eurus pouted on the screen and held out a button to the side, clicking it, turning the lights red in their cell as the image flickered to Moriarty, also bathed in a red light, "Clever Eurus! You go, girl!"</p><p>"How can that be Moriarty?" John turned to them when the lights turned normal. He wasn't asking how it was him, Leena had already said it was recordings, he meant…how had Eurus gotten them.</p><p>Mycroft just sent a glare to the director, who bowed his head, an admission that HE had given Eurus the footage.</p><p>"Hmm, Moriarty," Eurus hummed, "Loved it. Did you know his brother was a station master? I think he was always jealous."</p><p>"The girl," Sherlock cut in, "Where is she? Can we talk to her again?"</p><p>"Poor little thing," she pouted for a moment, "Alone in the sky in a great big plane with nowhere to land. But where in the world is she?"</p><p>Leena's eyes narrowed a moment at her phrasing, at the odd…tone in her voice, the briefest flicker of…<em>something</em> in Eurus's face, before it was gone.</p><p>"It's a clever little puzzle," Eurus continued, "If you want to apply yourself to it, I can reconnect you. But first…" she leaned back in the chair and swung to the side so they could see the balcony past her…where a woman was sitting there, tied to a chair, a gag across her mouth, struggling to get free.</p><p>The governor was on his feet at the sight, "That's my wife!" he scrambled over, "That's my wife! Oh, God, that's my wife!"</p><p>"She <em>did</em> ask you to bring her," Leena reminded him, "What did you think she would do with that sort of leverage? Invite her to tea?"</p><p>The man seemed horrified and completely startled, as though <em>just</em> realizing now the trap he'd fallen into, as though just realizing the danger he'd put his wife in by listening to Eurus.</p><p>"I'm going to shoot the governor's wife," Eurus stated, so simply it was as though she were saying she was just going to run down to the shop for some milk.</p><p>"Please, no," the director begged. He turned slightly, as though he wanted to speak to Sherlock but couldn't bring himself to look away, "Please. Help her!"</p><p>"In about a minute," she finished, turning back to the camera, and they could see the gun in her hand, "Bang. Dead!"</p><p>"Please don't do that," Sherlock spoke, just barely stopping himself from reaching out to take Leena's hand, not wanting to draw Eurus's attention to the other 'wife' in the room.</p><p>"Well, you can stop me."</p><p>"How?"</p><p>"There's a gun in the hatch. Take it," she pushed a button and the hatch spun so that the door opened to the room, and Sherlock moved to retrieve the pistol from inside it, "You want to save the governor's wife? Choose either Doctor Watson, dearest Leena, or Mycroft to kill the governor."</p><p>"Oh…oh God!" the director nearly seemed to collapse at the ultimatum.</p><p>Leena's jaw clenched, observing Eurus, the woman's blank expression, the way she'd said it, filing it away.</p><p>Sherlock didn't even cast a look around the room, he turned to the governor himself, clearly intent to take the burden on himself.</p><p>But Eurus noticed, "You can't do it, Sherlock. If <em>you</em> do it, it won't count. I'll kill her anyway. It has to be your brother, your wife, or your friend."</p><p>The governor turned to Mycroft, "You have to do this," but Mycroft shook his head, so he rounded on Sherlock, "Eurus will kill her."</p><p>She'll kill her no matter what, Leena couldn't help but think. Psychopaths, some thrived on causing pain, on creating tense and emotionally charged situations to observe and delight in. They liked to inflict pain, and not just physical but emotional, mental, too. By doing this…she would force one of them into murder, to save a life, a righteous reason, and then take it away by killing the man's wife, making it worthless.</p><p>She wanted to say it, warn them out loud about the very real possibility that nothing they did would save the woman…but she kept quiet. The director wouldn't believe her anyway, Eurus had already gotten to him, already convinced him in just this action that he had to die to save his wife. He would believe that to the bitter end, he wouldn't believe her if she said the woman would die anyway.</p><p>And she kept quiet because there was a chance, a CHANCE, that her initial belief was wrong and that Eurus was a type of psychopath that fixated on a demographic. She may have a skewed moral code that would prevent her from killing the woman because of some reason like her hair color or her gender…and this could be another psychological trap. Force them to kill when she wouldn't have harmed the man's wife in the first place and her declaring Eurus would kill her might cause a break and end the woman's life when it would have been safe.</p><p>How this went down, what Eurus did after, would tell her everything she needed to know about exactly what sort of psychopath Eurus Holmes was.</p><p>She looked up and tried to catch Sherlock's eye, to at least warn him that this was a trap, though she was sure he knew, but she would confirm it. Only he wasn't looking at her, in fact, he appeared to be doing his best <em>not</em> to look at her at all.</p><p>Ass.</p><p>If he thought ignoring her would protect her from Eurus's notice, they were going to have to have a long talk when this was over about how psychopaths functioned and exactly how observant they were as she'd already warned him, that Eurus would undoubtedly pick up on how much effort he was putting into not noticing her. There may be a quiz involved.</p><p>"Doesn't appear we have a choice," Sherlock remarked.</p><p>"Right then," Eurus smiled when Sherlock moved to Mycroft and held the gun out to him, "Countdown starting."</p><p>"How long?" Mycroft spoke.</p><p>"She won't tell you," Leena cut in, part of the heightened trauma for those who still thought there was a chance to save the wife.</p><p>She doubted there was an actual countdown, nor would there be until it appeared that her endgame was within sight. Eurus wanted the director dead, she would do all she could to make them think there was a time limit, when really she'd likely hold out till one of them actually did kill the man. And then she'd apply a countdown to ensure it happened.</p><p>"Ooh, she's a smarty pants," Eurus remarked, noting how Sherlock flinched, "The countdown is only for me. Withholding the precise deadline will apply the emotional pressure more evenly. Where possible, please give me an explicit verbal indication of your anxiety levels. I can't always read them from your behavior."</p><p>It was a few tense seconds of Mycroft looking at the gun in Sherlock's hand before he shook his head, "I can't do this," Sherlock could only give him an insistent look, "Can't. It's <em>murder</em>."</p><p>"This is not murder," the governor pleaded, "This is saving my wife."</p><p>"I'm particularly focused on internal conflicts," Eurus spoke from the monitor, watching them closely, "Where strategizing around a largely intuitive moral code appears to create a counter-intuitive result."</p><p>"I will not kill," Mycroft declared, "I will not have blood on my hands."</p><p>"Yes, very good," Eurus sighed, disappointed, "Thank you."</p><p>"Killing my wife is what you're doing!" the director accused.</p><p>But Mycroft would not be persuaded, backing away and shaking his head, "No."</p><p>Sherlock held his gaze a moment longer, before lowering the gun, "Ok, fine," and turned to offer it to John, Leena noting how his gaze dropped to the floor as he bypassed her to look up at John, "John."</p><p>John seemed startled, looking between the governor and Sherlock.</p><p>"Doctor Watson," the governor stepped forward, desperate, because each person Sherlock turned to who said no was another tick of the clock going down and his wife could die any moment, "Are you married?"</p><p>"Yes," John swallowed hard.</p><p>"If she was in danger," the man took another step forward, "What would you do to save her?" he gestured back at the screen, Eurus watching them, "Eurus will kill me. Please save my wife."</p><p>"There will, I'm afraid, be regular prompts to create an atmosphere of urgency," Eurus called, turning the lights red and bringing up Moriarty's image on the monitor once more.</p><p>"Tick tock," the image of the man began to repeat, "Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick…" Eurus turned the lights white, cutting off the image, before repeating the process over and over every few seconds, "Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tock, tick tock…"</p><p>Leena rolled her eyes at this, though she noticed the others growing more tense. She was especially disappointed in Mycroft for his reactions. Sherlock had just been through a shattering revelation, she expected him to struggle to keep it together somewhat. John was a soldier and a doctor, capable of maintaining his calm in the worst situations. The governor was already compromised. But Mycroft? He was the 'smart one,' he was the one prepared to 'handle' Eurus, he was the one who knew her and monitored her for years…and he wasn't seeing through this? Or perhaps he was, and him refusing was his way of trying to get the others to refuse as well and call a bluff of some sort...but she doubted it. He was clever enough to get that point across if that was his actual reason.</p><p>John, though, kept his eyes on the gun, flickering from it to the governor's pleading expression. His gaze turned to Leena for all of a split second, before he reached out to take the gun in his right hand, as though coming to terms with the fact that, by process of elimination, SHE would be the one who would have to kill the director if HE didn't. And he wouldn't put that on her.</p><p>He cleared his throat, looking away from the others and to the governor, "Your name's David?" he asked, just wanting to be sure.</p><p>"Yes," the governor spoke.</p><p>"And you're sure about this, David?" John eyed him critically.</p><p>"'Course I'm bloody sure."</p><p>Leena refrained from pointing out that any decisions made under duress were never 'sure.'</p><p>"Nearly there," Eurus taunted.</p><p>John hesitated, "Right. D'you want to…pray, or anything?"</p><p>It was clear to Sherlock and Leena that John desperately didn't want to do this. He was buying for time, the way Sherlock often did, hoping some other solution would arise, but, as trapped as they were, that was not likely to happen.</p><p>"With Eurus Holmes in the world, who the hell would I pray to?" the governor huffed.</p><p>John swallowed hard, "You are a good man, and you are doing a good thing."</p><p>"So are you."</p><p>"I'll spend the rest of my life telling myself that," John took a breath, watching as the man closed his eyes and stood there. He glanced at Sherlock, his eyes begging for any other way out of this, but a grim expression was all he needed to know there wasn't one. He turned back to the governor and raised the pistol at the man.</p><p>"Please!" the governor begged when seconds ticked by without a shot.</p><p>John's hand trembled, lowering slightly, before he took a breath and lifted it again…only for the governor to stop him with a hand raised, turning around to offer the back of his head. John clearly wasn't happy with any of this, but less so the idea of shooting anyone in the back. He took a moment, before lowering the gun and moving forward, putting a hand on the man's shoulder, startling him. He patted his shoulder and pushed a bit, motioning for the man to lower to his knees, still with his back to John. He glanced at the others, Sherlock and Leena grim, Mycroft turned away, and lifted the pistol to the back of the governor's neck, the pistol touching him.</p><p>"Oh, god," the governor sobbed a moment, trying to keep it together.</p><p>John couldn't bear that, stepping forward to put a hand on his shoulder, "I know that you're scared, but you should also be very proud."</p><p>"Just do it," the governor begged, "Be quick!"</p><p>John stepped back, aiming carefully with both hands, when the lights turned red and Moriarty was back on the screen, "Tick tick tick tick tick tick."</p><p>"This is very good, Doctor Watson," Eurus spoke, the lights resuming normal, "I should have fitted you with a cardiograph."</p><p>"Goodbye, David," John spoke, ignoring the woman, his hands trembling.</p><p>"Tock tock tock tock tock tock tock tick tick tick," the red light was back.</p><p>"Please!" the governor sobbed, the white light returned.</p><p>For one brief moment it looked as though John might do it…but he couldn't, lowering the gun and stepping back, "I can't," he looked at Sherlock and Leena, regretful, so, <em>so</em> sorry, because he knew what this would mean for the girl, "I'm sorry. I can't do it…"</p><p>He didn't even get a chance to offer the gun back to Sherlock, when the governor scrambled to his feet and grabbed it off him.</p><p>"Stop!" John cried out, holding his hands up, all of them backing away as the man turned the gun on them, "No, no, stop."</p><p>"David…" Leena tried to speak.</p><p>But the governor shook his head, "I'm sorry."</p><p>"It's alright," Sherlock attempted to placate him.</p><p>"I'm so sorry," the man repeated, turning the pistol on himself, the muzzle under his chin, "Remember me."</p><p>They all cried out, trying to stop him, lunging forward, but they were too late, the man had taken his own life with one shot, spraying blood onto the glass behind him as his body fell to the ground.</p><p>Mycroft turned away, gagging at the sight, while Leena turned into Sherlock, her eyes clenched tightly closed. She had seen worse, in all her time helping Sherlock and the BAU, but she never wanted to witness it. No one did. Sherlock wound an arm around her, looking down at the sight of the fallen man helplessly, before his gaze turned to John as the man frowned down at it all.</p><p>"Are you alright?" he called to John, his hands clenched and unclenching, not looking alright at all.</p><p>"Interesting," Eurus commented, "He didn't even let the girl try," she remarked, humming to herself.</p><p>Sherlock glared at the monitor, "Alright, there you go. You got what you wanted…and he's dead."</p><p>"Dead or alive," Eurus spun in the chair a bit, "He really wasn't very interesting, but you four? You four were wonderful. Thank you," she leaned toward the screen, "You see, what you did, Doctor Watson specifically because of your moral code, because you don't want blood on your hands, two people are dead instead of one."</p><p>"Two people?" John frowned.</p><p>Leena took a breath and pulled away from Sherlock, "She didn't get what she wanted," she warned them, "It was one of the three of us, not the director himself."</p><p>"Ooh, I like her," Eurus laughed, turning in the chair to face the balcony, lifting the pistol to fire at it, before turning back, a single bullet hole in the glass and the director's wife slumped over, dead. She spun the chair back to them, "What advantage did your moral code grant you? Is it not, in the end, selfish to keep one's hands clean at the expense of another's life?"</p><p>"You're speaking as though you were going to let her live even if one of us shot him," Leena spoke up, seeing John getting angry, seeing him on the very edge of screaming at the woman, she couldn't afford to let the others get so emotional, not around a psychopath. It was too easy to manipulate people when they were emotional.</p><p>"What?" Sherlock looked at her, almost startled.</p><p>"Very good," Eurus complimented thought, tilting her head to eye her, "Are you a psychopath too? Hmm, the Sociopath and the Psychopath…"</p><p>Leena turned to them, more sure of the type of psychopath Eurus was now, "She was never going to let his wife live. If one of us shot him, it was because of our moral code and desire to save a life. She would have shot his wife anyway, because it would make having morals moot if the conclusion is the same."</p><p>The trio fell silent at her remark, stiffening at how…it made sense, and Eurus wasn't denying it. No matter what they did, if one of them had shot the governor or not, his wife would still have been killed. To make their righteousness pointless, to put blood on their hands no matter what.</p><p>Leena looked over at Mycroft, "YOU should have seen this coming, smart one," she jabbed at him.</p><p>She couldn't fault him choices he made in the past, not when he'd been a child himself, not when his uncle Rudy would have been more in charge. But as an adult? Old enough to know better? Resourceful enough to find specialists while Eurus was still young enough to be helped? She had to believe that there were people out there capable of speaking with Eurus and not being reprogrammed, not when Mycroft could do it, when she had been able to. They existed, and for Eurus to still be there the only conclusion she could draw was that Mycroft never had. For him to keep claiming he knew best, that he knew Eurus more than anyone, and to STILL not see THIS in her actions? He may be a brilliant man, but he was not a psychologist.</p><p>Mycroft swallowed hard and looked away, because she was right. Leena had only known of Eurus's existence for a handful of days, and had already profiled her correctly enough to know what the woman would do and how she'd act. HE had known Eurus her entire life, and he hadn't seen that ploy coming. He…god help him, still saw Eurus his sister, not Eurus the psychopath. And it had cost a man his life, his wife too, and likely would cost many more lives before this was over.</p><p>"This is an experiment," Eurus spoke, "There will be rigor. Sherlock, pick up the gun. It's your turn next," she waited, but Sherlock didn't move, just looked at the gun where the governor had dropped it, "When I tell you to use it, and I will, remember what happened this time."</p><p>"What if I don't want a gun?" Sherlock challenged.</p><p>"Oh, the gun is intended as a mercy."</p><p>"For whom?"</p><p>"You."</p><p>"How so?"</p><p>"If someone else had to die, would you really want to do it with your bare hands? It would waste valuable time."</p><p>Sherlock looked at the others, catching Leena's eyes, silently asking her thoughts, she nodded reluctantly and so he moved forward and picked it up. He pulled the clip out and frowned, "There's only one bullet left," he said, slipping it back into the gun.</p><p>"You will only need one. But you will need it," she pushed a button on the desk and a panel on the left wall opened, a narrow hall behind it, "Please, go through. There's a few tasks for you, and a girl on a plane is getting very, very scared."</p><p>Sherlock moved towards the door, glancing through it, before he turned to the others as they followed, "Treats?" he asked Mycroft.</p><p>"Yes," Mycroft sighed, "You know, a violin."</p><p>"In exchange for…"</p><p>"She's very clever."</p><p>"I'm beginning to agree with Leena," Sherlock said dryly, "You're not."</p><p>They glanced up when the lights turned red again, Moriarty appearing on the monitor, "Come on now! Aaaaaall aboard! Choo choo! Choo choo!"</p><p>Sherlock sighed, turning to step past the panel, Leena and John after him, Mycroft taking the back.</p><p>~8~</p><p>The next room they entered was smaller than the cell, very bare, very sparse and basic. It was four concrete walls, splattered with red paint like blood stains, with a wide three-paned window in the back and a single table in the middle.</p><p>"Someone's been redecorating," Sherlock mumbled as he looked around.</p><p>"Is that allowed?" John scoffed.</p><p>"John, she's taken over the prison," Leena reminded him, "I don't think the new management cares."</p><p>"We have more to worry about than her choice of color scheme," Sherlock agreed, spotting an envelope on the table.</p><p>"Barely dry," Mycroft touched the paint, "Recent."</p><p>"It's for our benefit," Sherlock glanced behind him when the door to the room slid shut and the monitor fixed to the middle of the back wall turned on.</p><p>"As a motivator to your continued cooperation, I'm now reconnecting you," Eurus appeared for but a moment, before she clicked her remote, changing the footage to Moriarty.</p><p>"Fasten your seatbelts!" the recording called, "It's gonna be a bumpy night."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Sherlock was complicated for me to write in this episode. I felt like so much of his initial insistence to meet Eurus in the show was based in 'she's my sister!' and his general confusion for why he can't remember her, then later about Redbeard when she brings him up. He seemed a little too quick to face her and not like he had a real plan for it. Here, with Leena, I think part of him was still that curious to meet this sister, but another part of him was more aware of how dangerous she could be and what really could have become of her by now after all that time in isolation. Leena, with her experience, has given him tools he needs, quick lessons, to notice when Eurus's psychopathy is coming out or she's trying to manipulate him. It takes a little of that curiosity away and adds more caution to it.</p><p>But she IS still his sister and he doesn't know how to handle finding out there's another one he doesn't know, so he struggles to balance the 'she's dangerous, I need to be careful' with the 'good god, she's my sister and she's genius' aspect.</p><p>His struggle to view her as purely another psychopath to deal with will, as we see near the end, come back to bite him, much like it will Mycroft too.</p><p>That was why I was so interested to add Leena to this episode. Mycroft, for as intelligent as he is, made some very big mistakes. Granted we can't know all that he may have done or tried to do to help Eurus in the past, or any evaluations or specialists he may have had brought in, but certain things he says puts Leena on edge about it all. To her, it comes across as though he orchestrated for Eurus to be removed from the family at a very young age and, from that point, she's basically been in isolation with the belief that she's too dangerous to truly have assessed and too far gone in her psychosis to help. Leena's perspective is that, for as smart as Mycroft is, he's NOT a psychologist, he's not a specialist, and for him to not use every resource available to him to TRY and help his sister is not only horrific but has led to this point. HIS choices are what's created Eurus as she is now, all that isolation and being locked away by her own brother :( She understands Mycroft wouldn't have much choice as a child, when Uncle Rudy got involved, but when he became an adult he should have done something different.</p><p>Again, he MIGHT have, he hasn't exactly told them everything, but because of that Leena only has her own assumptions to go on.</p><p>Once, a long time ago, Eurus might have been able to be helped and learned to adapt, because not every person who is diagnosed with psychopathy is 'evil' or 'criminal' or anything, they just go through life differently. But now that Mycroft has added in the isolation, the distrust, the lack of human interaction, that has all devolved and Eurus is now a danger to her family. Leena is going to use every aspect of her background and experience to help the Holmes brothers handle this :( So I'll really try to dip into Leena's thoughts and show how she comes to gleam certain things about Eurus or her plans, based on her own past and cases she's been involved in or kept on top of. For as much of a genius as Eurus is, there are some aspects of her developed psychosis that might be predictable to someone trained in psychology, psychopathy, and criminology the way Leena is ;)</p><p>This chapter and the next will explore what I feel is the psychology behind things Sherlock does, says, and thinks about Eurus and the situation. He may view the next set of events differently with someone psychologically qualified to make assessments of Eurus at his side who he trusts implicitly. He may see things differently when it's not just his friend or brother in danger but his WIFE, the mother of his child, who he nearly lost to one enemy before. But I'll really try to look into his mind and rationalize those changes and how he interprets the events or the reasons behind the things he does ;)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. The Final Problem: An Enemy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warning! This chapter contains an attempt at murder via smoke inhalation. If that's not something you're comfortable reading, skip from just after the second test (with the 3 brothers) is finished to the next ~8~ mark ;)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was another note of static and the little girl's voice echoed over the speakers, "Are you still there?"</p><p>"Yes," Leena called out, though there was a frown on her face, something about the way the girl picked up setting her on edge, "Hello."</p><p>"Hello," Sherlock tried when the girl was silent, "We're still here. Can you hear us?"</p><p>"Yes," the girl answered, sniffling.</p><p>"Everything will be fine," Leena spoke, tilting her head as she listened intently, "Can you tell us where you are?"</p><p>"Outside, is it day or night?" Sherlock offered as another bout of silence lingered.</p><p>"Night," the girl responded.</p><p>"That certainly narrows it down to half the planet," Mycroft muttered, crossing his arms, not seeing the point in trying to work out the little girl's plight when Eurus was on the loose, it was a far greater threat in his mind.</p><p>"What kind of a plane are you on?" Sherlock continued.</p><p>"Um, I don't know," she called.</p><p>Leena closed her eyes, trying to think of a map in her head, where a plane could be coming from that would be travelling while it was night right now. Her phone had been taken from her so she couldn't use her app to track the flights.</p><p>"Is it big or small?" John tried to help.</p><p>"Big."</p><p>"Lots of people on it?"</p><p>"Lots and lots, but they're all asleep. I can't wake them up."</p><p>"Where did you take off from?" Sherlock asked.</p><p>"Even the driver's asleep."</p><p>"No, I understand, but where did you come from? Where did the plane take off?"</p><p>"My nan's."</p><p>"And where are you going?"</p><p>"Home."</p><p>"Airport, sweetheart," Leena called, "What airport…"</p><p>There was a familiar click, and Eurus appeared on the monitor once more, "Enough for now," she leaned in, "Time to play a new game. Look on the table in front of you," she instructed, sitting back in her chair to observe but they didn't move, "Open the envelope!" she snapped, "If you want to speak to the girl again, earn yourself some phone time!"</p><p>Sherlock huffed but moved to pick up the envelope.</p><p>"This is inhuman," Mycroft glared at Eurus, "This is insane!"</p><p>"Mycroft, we know," John shot him a look.</p><p>"And it's also expected," Leena added, shooting him a hard look, "Psychopaths, Mycroft, you should have told me."</p><p>At the very least she could have been trusted to assist him with her containment, evaluate her on some level without fear of being reprogramed. Which just made her all the more furious with him. Because he probably would have only brought her in after Eurus's psychosis had solidified and grown to the point it was now. A small voice in her head said that she wouldn't have been much help to the girl when she'd been developing anyway, she hadn't been in university then, she hadn't been studying psychology or criminology then. She wouldn't reach that point till she was an adult, so thinking she could have helped Eurus as a child was moot. But as an adult? Maybe there was some small thing she could have done to help, if not Eurus than Mycroft. Because this WAS expected. What Eurus was doing, when one understood psychosis, isolation, and psychopathy, parts of it were predictable, and maybe she would have picked up on some sort of clue that Eurus was planning something or not as secure as she should be. If not her, than someone, Mycroft should have brought in <em>someone</em>.</p><p>"You never would have kept it from Sherlock," Mycroft shook his head, and Leena knew it was true, she never kept things from him and this would be too big a secret to hope to hide from him.</p><p>"Neither should you have," Leena's look turned into a full glare.</p><p>She understood traumatic experiences, especially in childhood, and that perhaps the child he'd been wouldn't have been able to handle knowing about Eurus or being forced to remember her. But as an adult? Knowing Sherlock, if done the right way, he would have been able to process it in his own time, slowly remember and coming to terms with things. It wasn't always true for people, some traumas were just that terrible they shouldn't be remembered, but she knew her husband well enough to know what he could handle it all if done right.</p><p>Mycroft had waited too long and Eurus took matters into her own hands. And Sherlock hadn't been prepared for it, the shock of learning he had a sister, the curiosity about her, the familial concern for what happened to her, it had all driven him to going to confront Eurus on a whim. It was sudden and rash and he hadn't thought it through, he hadn't prepared for it, prepared himself for it. He just wanted to meet his sister, see if there was some problem he could solve to help her, and that hope was likely what made him a bit hesitant to fully see her as the dangerous psychopath she was now. Maybe Eurus had planned it that way, to shock Sherlock so much his interest was hooked and to lure him in ill-prepared and more vulnerable than he would have been normally. She couldn't say. She just felt if Sherlock had been told slowly and allowed the time to process it all, he would have handled all this differently.</p><p>All she could do was go along and hope to help.</p><p>"Six months ago," Eurus continued when Sherlock began to place a series of three photos on the table from the envelope, "A man called Evans was murdered, unsolved except by me," she clicked a button and a light turned on above Sherlock, drawing his attention to a hunting rifle set on the small ledge above him, "He was shot from a distance of three hundred meters with this rifle," Sherlock stretched up and pulled it down, "Now, if the police had any brains they'd realize there are three suspects, all brothers. Nathan Garrideb, Alex Garrideb, and Howard Garrideb."</p><p>Leena, John, and Mycroft gathered near the table with Sherlock, seeing the photos were of the three brothers, each with their own individual picture.</p><p>"All these photos are up-to-date, but which one pulled the trigger, Sherlock? Which one?"</p><p>Leena looked over at the monitor, her face blank, but internally...everything Eurus did added to the profile.</p><p>"What's this?" John demanded of the woman, "We're supposed to solve this based on what?"</p><p>"This," Sherlock gestured at the photos, "This is all we get."</p><p>"Please, make use of your friends, Sherlock," Eurus encouraged, "I want to see you interact with people that you're close to. Also, you may have to choose which one to keep."</p><p>Sherlock sighed and turned to Mycroft, holding up the rifle, "What do you make of it?"</p><p>"Am I being asked to prove my usefulness?" Mycroft scoffed.</p><p>"Yes, I should think you are."</p><p>"I will not be manipulated like this."</p><p>"Hasn't stopped you yet," Leena muttered, "It's old," she offered to Sherlock, somewhat more familiar with rifles than he was, "Wooden in make, ancient telescope."</p><p>"It's a buffalo gun," John identified, taking it from Sherlock and examining it, moving it into a position of use to examine the telescope, "I'd say 1940s, old-fashioned sight, no crosshairs."</p><p>"The old-fashioned scopes have a tendency to have a kickback," Leena added, recalling her father and how they would go hunting together sometimes, he always liked the older guns than the more modern ones, felt he was cheating and the hunt was too easy with those. He would warn her about kickbacks, would laugh about it when he got too invested and forgot his own advice.</p><p>"Glasses," Sherlock jumped on that, on what would be the easiest way to identify the killer, "Glasses," if the shooter was wearing glasses, it would have shattered and cut someone around the eye, "Nathan wears glasses," he pointed to the first photo, "Evans was shot from three hundred meters. Kick back would be massive," he agreed, leaning in to look at the man's eyes, "No cuts, no scarring, so the shooter wasn't wearing glasses. Not Nathan, then," he turned the photo over, "Who's next?"</p><p>"Well done, Doctor Watson," Mycroft huffed, "How useful you are. Do you have a suspicion we're being made to compete?"</p><p>"That's Eurus's intention," Leena corrected though her gaze was on the photos, "Not why John is helping."</p><p>John nodded, "There's a plane in the air that's gonna crash, so what we're doing is actually trying to save a little girl. Today we have to be soldiers, Mycroft, <em>soldiers</em>, and that means to hell with what happens to us."</p><p>"Your priorities do you credit," Mycroft offered.</p><p>"No, my priorities just got a woman killed."</p><p>"Would have happened anyway we spun it, John," Leena glanced at him, it didn't help at all, but it was at least some of the burden off, to know there was truly <em>nothing</em> they could have done to save the governor's wife.</p><p>"Now," Eurus cut in, "As I understand it, Sherlock, you try to repress your emotions to refine your reasoning. I'd like to see how that works while the biggest trigger for your emotions is in the room," her gaze flickered to Leena and back to Sherlock, enjoying the murderous and threatening look on his face, she could recognize that at least, "So, if you don't mind, I'm going to apply some context to your deductions."</p><p>There was a grunting noise behind them, and they turned to see that three men had been suspended from a harness to dangle in the individual panes of the window. Their hands were bound, their legs chained together, with gags across their mouths. Each had a card slung around their neck, indicating their names…it was each of the three siblings.</p><p>"Oh, dear God," Mycroft breathed, horrified.</p><p>"Two of the Garridebs work here as orderlies," Eurus spoke, "So getting the third along really wasn't too difficult. Once you bring in your verdict, let me know and justice will be done."</p><p>"Justice?" Sherlock repeated.</p><p>"Her own form of justice," Leena warned, a sinking feeling in her stomach. The first test, morality. The second, justice. The first meant to show that morality meant nothing, this would likely be the same. Trick them into 'serving justice' and then retract it or twist it at the last moment to cause more emotional anguish. It wasn't hard to work out that, if Eurus wanted them to pick just ONE of the siblings, that 'justice' would, instead, likely be served to the other two.</p><p>God, she really hoped she was wrong.</p><p>Because the worst part was that she couldn't just <em>say</em> what Eurus would do out loud, not in a way where Eurus would understand she was 'tattling' on her plans. If she did, she had no doubt that Eurus would drop all three without hesitation, or apply more pressure, or do something equally as horrible to make Sherlock feel worse. She had to be very careful in how she brought her fears up...</p><p>"What will you do with them?" John asked Eurus.</p><p>"Early release," Eurus smirked.</p><p>"You'll drop them into the sea," Sherlock surmised.</p><p>"Sink, or swim."</p><p>"They're tied up!" John reminded, there was no possible way they'd be able to swim like that.</p><p>"Exactly! Now there is context."</p><p>"They're all tied up," Leena repeated, her eyes on the three brothers, "Guilty or innocent," she added, giving Sherlock a meaningful look, "Just like before."</p><p>His eyes widened for a split second, before they closed, understanding her warning about how this might go. It was very possible that wouldn't matter who he picked, Eurus would kill all the brothers regardless.</p><p>If he picked wrong, she'd taunt him, kill the actual guilty one, then kill his pick because he'd picked it, and probably kill the last because he'd gotten it wrong. Or he picked the right one and she killed the innocent ones anyway just to hurt him. This wasn't meant to test anything, it was meant to make him THINK he could beat her or win and have her be one step ahead and trick him into not seeing the pain coming. It was just to torment him. Eurus knew he was clever, she knew he'd be able to work it out. Because this…this was what he DID, this was what his entire business was built on. She knew he could do it and get it right, which put him in a bind because if he got it wrong…she'd know he knew what Leena had warned him. And things could get much worse.</p><p>Leena wasn't telling him this to try and give him a way to beat Eurus, it was a kindness to warn him, so he could prepare himself for the inevitable 'punishment' and pain that would come from Eurus's actions.</p><p>He took a breath, making a decision, and moved to put the rifle on the table, examining the photos. He was starting to understand now. He couldn't treat Eurus like a sister, not even like a Holmes, right now she was just another enemy to be dealt with. And he knew what he had to do to get to a place where he could confront said enemy, where he could get close enough to them to take them down.</p><p>He had to make her think she was winning.</p><p>"Please, continue with your deductions," Eurus called out, "I'm now focusing on the difference to your mental capacity a specified consequence can make."</p><p>"Why should we bother?" Mycroft challenged, "What if we're disinclined to play your games, little sister?"</p><p>Eurus chuckled, but it was a hollow sound, as though she was only doing it because that's what should be expected, "I have, if you remember, provided you with some motivation."</p><p>Leena spun around when there was a click and the little girl was back on the speakers, "We're going through the clouds, like cotton wool."</p><p><em>That</em> wasn't right, Leena noticed, fighting to keep her face carefully controlled, to display concern for the girl instead of the deep frown of suspicion she wanted to wear. The girl was speaking as though she were <em>still</em> describing what she could see outside the window. And that wasn't right, because any child in that situation would have noticed they hadn't spoken in too long, they'd be crying now, they'd have stopped talking and resumed calling out for help…not just kept on looking out the window.</p><p>"You said you could see the pilots asleep, too?" she called out before the others could utter a word to try and reassure the girl. She had to get this out, she needed to know.</p><p>"Yes," the girl sniffled, "And my mummy. Why won't my mummy wake up?"</p><p>Sherlock, however, had looked up at Leena for her question, staring at her as his mind raced to process what she had clearly worked out about the little girl and the plane. She wouldn't have gone for such a straightforward question, not when <em>a child</em> was frightened, she had too much empathy to not want to try and make her feel better as soon as she could. And she wouldn't have asked that when the girl had already told them something about the pilots before.</p><p>He was aware enough to know there was something important about the pilots that had gotten Leena's attention.</p><p>He let his gaze trickle down to the table, where Leena was resting against it, her hand flat on the surface to brace herself, making it seem like he was looking at the photos again, but he could see her finger out of the corner of his eye, tapping on the table in what he knew others would imagine were nerves for the girl. Because he knew she was forcing her expression a certain way for Eurus's benefit, not because it was genuine. He had spent too much time noticing her expressions over the years to know when she was trying to convince others she felt one way and not another.</p><p>He watched as intently as he could without Eurus noticing how Leena hit the pad of her finger on the table once, then two taps of her nail, then three taps with the pad of her finger, and three more, a tap of her nail, the pad, and her nail, before she seemed to get frustrated and pushed off the table to turn to the dangling brothers.</p><p>She wasn't frustrated though, he knew her when she was frustrated and this wasn't it.</p><p>But Eurus didn't understand emotions, she had admitted it herself, and Leena was taking full advantage of it to give him the coded message he needed to solve the mystery of the girl on the plane and focus on this task instead.</p><p>"So it's got to be one of the other two," he returned to the photos only after Eurus appeared back on the screen, watching, "Now," he pushed off the desk and moved to the windows, looking at the first brother, "Howard," he eyed the man critically, "Howard's a lifelong drunk. Pallor of his skin, terminal gin blossoms on his red nose," and his gaze fell to the man's shaking hands, "And, terror notwithstanding, a bad case of the DTs."</p><p>Leena nodded, working out why that was important, "He would have been shaking too much to get a proper hit from three hundred meters away."</p><p>"So that leaves us with Alex," Sherlock moved to the very last man, eyeing him, "Indentations on the temples suggest he habitually wears glasses. Frown lines suggest a lifetime of peering."</p><p>"He's shortsighted," Mycroft added, joining him, "Or he was. His recent laser surgery has done the trick."</p><p>"Laser surgery?"</p><p>"Look at his clothes. He's made an effort."</p><p>"That's very good?" John commented, not fully sure what that had to do with the surgery.</p><p>"Excellent," Sherlock agreed, not hearing the question in it, "Suddenly he sees himself in quite a different light now that he's dumped the specs. Even has a spray tan. But he's clearly not used to his new personal grooming ritual," he glanced at the man's very dirty fingernails, "That can be told by the state of his fingernails and the fact that there's hair growing in his ears. So it's a superficial job, then. But he got his eyes fixed. His hands were steady. He pulled the trigger," he turned around to look at Eurus, pointing at the windows, "He killed Evans."</p><p>"Are you ready to condemn the prisoner?" Eurus asked.</p><p>"Sherlock," Mycroft stepped over to him, "We can't do this."</p><p>"The plane, remember?" Sherlock spoke to Mycroft, though his gaze caught Leena's sorrowful eyes. Eurus wasn't the only one who could play games, they just had to make her think she was, play into her ego till they could get her to a place where she could be stopped. Just like any other criminal who thought they were too clever to be stopped, Moriarty, Smith, Magnussen.</p><p>"Sherlock?" Eurus called out again, "Are you ready?"</p><p>Sherlock took a breath, "Alex."</p><p>"Say it. Condemn him. Condemn him in the knowledge of what will happen to the man you name."</p><p>Sherlock grimaced and turned to the window, knowing it wouldn't just be about the man he named…but the others as well, and he couldn't even let John or Mycroft know, "I condemn Alex Garrideb."</p><p>Leena could only let out a slow breath when, instead of Alex being dropped, his brothers were instead.</p><p>"Mind the gap," Moriarty's voice taunted from behind them.</p><p>"Congratulations," Eurus declared blankly, "You got the right one," she nodded to the door on the other side of the room from where they'd come in as it slid open, "Now, go through the door."</p><p>"You dropped the other two!" John accused, angry, as he stormed towards the screen, "<em>Why</em>?"</p><p>"Because morality and justice don't exist," Leena stated, rubbing her head as she moved over to John, "Just like her beliefs in good and bad," she reminded him of the footage they'd seen, even then it had added to the profile, "She's trying to prove her point."</p><p>Eurus gave a sharp nod, "Does it really make a difference, killing the innocent instead of the guilty?" she hummed, thoughtful, "Let's see," and pressed a button, releasing Alex to drop into the sea as well.</p><p>"The train has left the station!" Moriarty mocked.</p><p>"No," Eurus was back, "That felt pretty much the same."</p><p>John turned to Leena even as Sherlock stepped out of the room and through the next door, "You knew," he looked at her, how grim she was, how unsurprised in her reaction to the brothers dropping, "You knew she'd drop the other two."</p><p>"I knew she'd likely drop them all," Leena corrected, which made Eurus frown, and so she turned to the woman, John storming off to follow Sherlock, "You're not as clever as you think you are," she told the woman, "All the points of your genius are tied to your psychosis. Understand the psychosis, you understand the methods and the madness, too," she glanced over at Mycroft, pointedly, before he bowed his head and moved to follow the others. She gave Eurus one more look, "Your brothers may excel at sleuthing out a crime scene and the victim, but I'M the one that figures out the criminal. You're just more of the same."</p><p>Eurus pouted, watching as she headed to follow the boys, "Well, you're not very fun at all."</p><p>Leena reached the narrow corridor just as Sherlock led the way into another room at the end of it and stepped out, the door to the last room shutting behind her. She moved down the hall, reaching the door the others had entered...only for the door to slam shut, cutting her off from the men.</p><p>Sherlock spun around, not even taking the room into account when the door shut, seeing Leena not there, "Leena!" he called, moving to the door and banging on it, "Leena!"</p><p>"I'm here!" she called from the other side, "I'm here, Sherwood."</p><p>"Ooh," Eurus appeared on a monitor along one wall, "Sorry. Hit the button a bit too fast, didn't I?" she didn't sound sorry or like she just 'happened' to hit it on accident.</p><p>"Eurus, open the door!" Sherlock snapped.</p><p>"Sherlock," John spoke, his voice tense.</p><p>Sherlock turned at the tone, freezing when he caught sight of what was set up in the middle of the empty room. A single coffin resting between two trestles.</p><p>Mycroft was grim, having approached it, and looked at Sherlock.</p><p>Even without seeing the name on the plaque affixed to the front of the coffin, illuminated by a shaft carved into the ceiling to allow light in, his mind was already processing and deducing whose it was. Given the size and shape of the coffin, a woman, not a child, the make of it indicated someone willing to pay a bit more, the care put into it indicated a married woman. It could have been anyone, any average married woman…</p><p>But the name, the initials etched there, was anything but.</p><p>J.A.H.</p><p>Jaqueline Angelique Holmes.</p><p>He knew it in every fiber of his being, this coffin…it was meant for Leena.</p><p>"One more minute on the phone," Eurus spoke, and the speakers cut out to play the little girl to them.</p><p>"…frightened," she was saying, "I'm really frightened."</p><p>Sherlock nodded to himself, closing his eyes, he could hear it now, what had first clued Leena into this being not what it seemed, but so long as Eurus watched, he had to keep up the ruse, "It's ok, don't worry. I don't have very long with you, so I just need you to tell me what you can see outside the plane."</p><p>"Just the sea. I can see the sea."</p><p>"Are there ships on it?"</p><p>"No ships. I can see lights in the distance."</p><p>'Is it a city?"</p><p>"I think so."</p><p>"She's about to fly over a city in a pilotless plane," Mycroft spoke quietly, "We'll have to talk her through it."</p><p>"Through what?" John hissed.</p><p>"Hello?" the girl called out, "Are you still there?"</p><p>Sherlock let out a breath, sure of it now, Leena was right, "Still here," he spoke, "Just give us a minute," he moved around the room, trying to find whatever the next trick or trap or test was because no matter what, he would <em>not</em> allow that coffin to be real.</p><p>"Getting the plane away from any mainland, any populated areas," Mycroft spoke quietly to John, "It has to crash in the sea."</p><p>"What about the girl?!" John looked horrified.</p><p>"Well, obviously, Doctor Watson, she's the one who's going to crash it."</p><p>"No," he shook his head, "We could help her land it."</p><p>"And if we fail, and she crashes into a city? How many will die then?"</p><p>"How are we gonna get her to do that?"</p><p>"I'm afraid we're going to have to give her hope."</p><p>"Is there really no one there that can help you?" Sherlock called out, louder than necessary for the girl to hear him, but wanting Leena to know they were still there, "Have you really, really checked?"</p><p>"Everyone's asleep," the girl repeated, "Will you help me?"</p><p>"We're going to do everything that we can."</p><p>"I'm scared. I'm really scared."</p><p>"It's alright. I…"</p><p>Another click signaled the end of the call, and Eurus was back on the monitor, "Now, back to the matter in hand. Coffin."</p><p>"Coffin?" Leena's voice called through the door, likely having waited till he'd finished speaking with the little girl for more clues.</p><p>"Yes," Sherlock grit his teeth.</p><p>"It's the only thing in here," John added.</p><p>Sherlock glared at the monitor, "I don't appreciate that."</p><p>"Did you appreciate the other tests?" Eurus cocked her head to the side, considering his answer, but he only glared. So she shrugged, "Problem: someone is about to die. It will be, as I understand it, a tragedy," her gaze flickered to the coffin and back to Sherlock, "So many days not lived, so many words unsaid…"</p><p>"Enough," Sherlock spat.</p><p>Eurus cocked her head to the side, studying him and blinking, "Hmm. I was wrong. Interesting. That doesn't happen often."</p><p>"About what?" John shook his head.</p><p>"He's more emotional when his emotional trigger ISN'T in the room with him," she stated, in reference to Leena, "I can let her in, when you solve the next problem. She'll be safe till then. Relatively speaking."</p><p>"Relatively speaking?" Sherlock grit his teeth, trying his best to remember every tip Leena had given him about facing a psychopath, not getting emotional being among the highest on the list (don't get emotional unless it was a ploy to trick the psychopath). But how the hell was he supposed to do that when his wife's coffin was in front of him and his sister was saying she wasn't safe at all?!</p><p>Eurus hummed, and the monitor split in two, showing an image of Eurus in the governor's office, and Leena in the hall, standing near the closed door, her ear pressed to it to hear them.</p><p>And then a countdown clock appeared at the bottom of Leena's half of the screen, set for 3 minutes.</p><p>"The hall is set to fill with smoke," Eurus stated, and they could her a hissing noise behind them, could see Leena step away from the door and look around, before a very wispy, white image began to drift past the camera, "In approximately three minutes it will be enough to essentially suffocate her."</p><p>"And what's the test?" Sherlock demanded, seeing the countdown begin, and knowing, from his own research, that it was a very real possibility, that someone could die of smoke inhalation in mere minutes, "What riddle do I have to solve, what test to I have to pass!? Tell me!"</p><p>"She's your wife," Eurus stated, "The mother of your child. You married her and she you. So you must love her. Prove it."</p><p>"What?" Sherlock shook his head, for the first time feeling truly lost.</p><p>"Sherwood," Leena called from behind the door, a faint coughing sounding, "Be smart," she warned him, "Be safe."</p><p>"Tick tock," Moriarty's image taunted in the now-red lights of the room, "Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tick."</p><p>Sherlock glared at the count down, 2:39, at Leena crouched low on the ground to get as far away from the rising smoke as she could, "How do you want me to do that?"</p><p>Eurus appeared on screen, rolling her eyes and held up the remote she'd been using, "There's one in the room, find it and save your wife. Don't and…well…I've always been fascinated by the biological changes that take place in post mortems due to smoke inhalation."</p><p>Sherlock's jaw clenched, the countdown now to 2:27</p><p>"Ooh, he's making a face," she tilted her head to look at him, "You shouldn't or I won't be nice and give you a clue."</p><p>"What <em>clue</em>?" he asked, turning away from the monitor to begin looking around the room, for any cracks in the wall or loose floorboards, it could be complicated and hidden somewhere complex, or she could have gone so simple to trick him and hide it under the creaking floor, he had to cover everything as fast as he could.</p><p>"I don't like your tone," she tsked, "Hmm, I'll give you the clue if you make me a promise, brother to sister, pinky swear," she held up her pinky at the camera, drawing attention to the countdown now at 2:12.</p><p>They could hear Leena coughing through the door, could see the smoke thicker in the hall.</p><p>"And what would that be?" Sherlock demanded.</p><p>"We should go get chips again," Eurus sighed, "That was a lovely night. The chips were amazing."</p><p>"You won't ever be leaving this island again," Mycroft warned her.</p><p>"Then no clue, and don't think I'll let Doctor Watson or Mycroft help you either," Eurus shrugged, clicking the remote to activate the red lights and the footage of Moriarty mouthing 'tick tock' over and over.</p><p>"Sherlock, what can we do?" John turned to his friend, frantic to help.</p><p>"The coffin," Sherlock ran to it, starting to try and tear the lining out, the lights returned to white, "It has to be here, there's nowhere else…"</p><p>There was literally <em>nothing else</em>, the monitor was so firmly affixed to the wall there was no way to hid anything behind it. Mycroft and John hurried over to help him search, looking under the lid and under the coffin itself, around the mounts holding it up…but there was nothing.</p><p>Sherlock slammed his fists down on the edge of it, his mind racing, trying to find any clue anywhere for where the remote was.</p><p>The countdown mocked him, 1:48, moments before Moriarty's face was back, blocking out the image of Leena in the hall, the smoke so thick he almost couldn't see her through it.</p><p>"Sherwood!" Leena called through the door, a heavy cough following. The lights turning white, the camera footage showed her appearing to be lying on her stomach to get beneath the smoke, "Sherwood!"</p><p>"Leena," Sherlock moved to the door, crouching beside it, "I'm sorry," he told her, "I'm so sorry, I can't…"</p><p>"It's not about <em>me</em>," Leena cut in, gagging a bit from the smoke everywhere, "It's about <em>her</em>. The promise she wants, it's <em>her</em>. She wants you to pick her. She just…" she sounded like she was on the verge of tears, "She doesn't want to be here, can't you see?"</p><p>"Leena…" he frowned, a little startled at the sudden turn in her emotions.</p><p>"William Sherlock Scott Holmes!" Leena snapped through the door, before coughing terribly, causing him to stiffen, his eyes wide, "This's too much, really. Look, I…" she took a breath, "Last time, with Moriarty, we made a choice. But now? This won't work ok? Threaten, curse, rage, shout, do whatever. Your sister shouldn't quietly sit by alone. Own this mistake Mycroft made, change it. Life shouldn't be lived within cages. All Eurus wants…" she gasped for air, "She just wants her autonomy. Is that so much to want? Always fixated with things she can't have. Always on freedom just beyond her reach? Apparently you can't see what she's really asking. She just wants to go step outside, won't you consider that she may acclimatize? Let her be free. Mycroft's choice's inhumane. You can change this for her, everything. Be the just man you truly are. Harmed, Sherwood, locked away, forgotten, ignored. Crushed under someone's <em>foot</em>. It's no way to <em>live</em>."</p><p>Sherlock stared at the door, tears in his eyes.</p><p>"Ooh, sweet," Eurus taunted on the screen behind him, "Begging for her life. Can't buy me though. I'm too clever."</p><p>"No," Sherlock realized, his eyes widening, because that...that was not Leena begging for her life, she'd seen too much and been through too much to do that, not for someone like Eurus, not when her faith in HIM had never broken before, "No, you're really not! And she wasn't begging!" he leapt to his feet, running to the base of the coffin, to the foot of it and ripping the panel off, "Freedom!" he shouted, getting her message, for it WAS a message and not begging, "Foot!"</p><p>Eurus wanted her freedom and the freedom was the clue she wouldn't give.</p><p>"Freedom in death, but that's just trapped in a box. In the old days when you can't afford a coffin, you make one with a false bottom, dump the body through and…" he reached in and ripped out a small remote that was hidden between the bottom and the lining, a single button in it, "Yes!" he cheered, pushing it and the door to the hall slid open, Leena slumping into the room.</p><p>John was at her side in an instant, pulling her all the way in, checking her over as she began to cough, Sherlock and Mycroft hurrying to her side, Sherlock pulling her into his arms as his heart raced at how too-close that had been.</p><p>There were only 2 seconds left on the countdown.</p><p>"That's cheating," Eurus remarked.</p><p>"<em>I</em> found it," Sherlock glared at the footage, "You said John and Mycroft couldn't help, you never said anything about Leena. That's your mistake."</p><p>Eurus considered it before sighing, "I suppose," she shrugged, not perturbed, "I wasn't expecting you to find it though. I'm not sure if that deserves a congratulations or a penalty…" she observed the three of them gathered around the girl on the floor, "All those complicated little emotions. I lost count. Emotional context, Sherlock. It destroys you every time."</p><p>Leena could only gasp as she trembled in Sherlock's arms. She never doubted he'd find a way to save her, she had, though, doubted Eurus would actually put the remote there. But she had gambled that the woman would delight in Sherlock finding it AFTER his wife had died of smoke. She could imagine the emotional impact it would make, for the door to open after she'd died, for Sherlock to be forced to pick her up and bring her to the coffin and place her in it, only for the bottom to break when her foot hit it, to fall open and drop the remote on the floor.</p><p>She'd never been more thankful that she'd been right.</p><p>And she'd never been more thankful that Sherlock remembered their old message system, the one they used so Mycroft couldn't crack it.</p><p>They had used it so often as children, and even when they'd been separated by her in America, because both of them doubted Mycroft wouldn't hack into their emails a few times, that she was quite capable of turning one out at a moment's notice, so used to having to fit it all together in the right order with the right phrases. She just had to be careful, triple so this time. She had to make sure he got her real message, but also let him know where she thought Eurus might hide the remote, AND ensure Eurus wouldn't work out what she was trying to do, having to spin it to seem sorrowful and urging for Eurus herself. Psychopaths like this, the criminal variety, it was about them, not others. Eurus wanted HER gone because she was in the way, she was a woman in Sherlock's life which meant there was one less space for Eurus in his life. It would hurt Sherlock, it would 'punish him,' and it would be a 'lesson' not to let other women in, that Eurus should be the only woman he spent time with.</p><p>"You alright" John asked, patting her on the back as she sat up, shaking terribly, her lungs burning, her eyes were watering, but she was alive.</p><p>"Been better…" she panted, her voice raspy from the raw way the smoke had scorched her throat.</p><p>Sherlock just tugged her closer, pressing a kiss to her forehead, "You're alive," he murmured, over and over.</p><p>"Can't get rid of me that easily, Locksley," she spoke so quietly only he could hear her.</p><p>"Touching," Eurus remarked, her voice blank and flat, her expression equally so, "I suppose you had to win at least one game, statistically speaking. Didn't think it would be this one," she pouted, "Suppose it makes the next one all the more interesting. Now, please, pull yourself together. I need you at peak efficiency," she pushed the remote button and a door at the back of the room opened, "In your own time."</p><p>Sherlock grit his teeth but helped Leena to her feet, letting her lean on him as he helped her walk towards the door, John close behind, Mycroft trailing, looking very pale and green.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Sherlock looked up when the lights turned red just as they reached the doorway of the next room. He made sure to stand in the doorway, lightly pushing Leena inside and giving John and Mycroft time to enter too before he stepped fully in, making sure they were all together this time.</p><p>"Tick tock, tickets please!" Moriarty's voice echoed.</p><p>The room was another grey-walled one, the red lights turning white again, no windows, a monitor on each of the four walls, all playing the pouring water image. The floor was mostly grey except for a large white panel in the center.</p><p>"Hey, sis, don't mean to complain but this one's empty," Sherlock called out, moving right over to Leena as she tried to cough subtly, not wanting to show weakness, "What happened? Did you run out of ideas?"</p><p>"It's not empty, Sherlock," Eurus defended, appearing on one of the monitors, "You've still got the gun, haven't you? I told you you'd need it, because only two can play the next game. Just two of you go on from here…your choice," she smiled at them, "It's make-your-mind-up time. Whose help do you need the most, John, Leena, or Mycroft?" she giggled, "I bet you're regretting saving her now."</p><p>"Never," Sherlock shot her a glare, both for that remark and for using Leena's nickname.</p><p>But Eurus just continued, "It's an elimination round. You choose one and kill the other two. You have to choose family, spouse, or friend."</p><p>Leena scoffed under her breath even as the lights turned red and Moriarty appeared, tick tocking again. Sherlock ran a hand down her back, his thumb stroking her spine in a sign of comfort. Despite the ultimatum, he wasn't concerned. This, he knew, was the opportune moment Leena had subtly warned him of earlier. Eurus really <em>wasn't</em> as clever as she claimed to be if she hadn't realized all that Leena had let slip to him right under her nose.</p><p>"Eurus, enough!" Mycroft snapped, causing her to turn the white lights on and appear in the monitor.</p><p>"Not yet, I think," she hummed, "But nearly. Remember, there's a plane in the sky, and it's not going to land."</p><p>Mycroft rubbed a hand down his face, before he turned to Sherlock, "Well?" he demanded.</p><p>"Well, what?" Sherlock shook his head.</p><p>"We're not actually going to discuss this, are we?" Mycroft sneered, before rolling his eyes and looking between John and Leena, "I'm sorry, Doctor Watson. You're a fine man in many respects, and you, Jackie, thank you for making Sherly happy for a time," before he focused on Sherlock again, "Make your goodbyes and end them. Go on," he urged, "You have a tie for when the bullet is gone."</p><p>John shook his head at the realization Mycroft was trying to tell Sherlock to strangle one of them, when it hit him that Mycroft thought HE should be the one to go on with Sherlock, "What?!"</p><p>"Shoot Doctor Watson or Jacqueline," Mycroft instructed his brother, ignoring John, "Choke the other. There's no question who has to continue from here. It's us, you and me. Whatever lies ahead requires brainpower, Sherlock, not sentiment, not psychology. Don't prolong their agony, end them."</p><p>"Oh, are we doing this now?" Leena snorted, observing Mycroft's attempts.</p><p>"Hold on," John frowned at Mycroft, "Don't <em>we</em> get a say in this?"</p><p>"Today, we are soldiers," Mycroft repeated, "Soldiers die for their country. I regret that privilege is now yours."</p><p>John looked like he was about to argue, but let out a breath instead, "Shit…he's right," he turned to Sherlock, who seemed shocked John was agreeing, "He is, in fact, right."</p><p>"Oh, no, he's not," Leena rolled her eyes, brushing it off, as though Mycroft wasn't standing there trying to tell her husband to kill her.</p><p>"Well, see, go on," Mycroft urged, "Get it over with and we can get to work," but when Sherlock just stared at him, Mycroft scoffed, "God! I should have expected this," he glowered at Sherlock, "Pathetic. You always were the slow one, the idiot. That's why I've always despised you. You shame us all. You shame the family an…"</p><p>A resounding crack sounded as Leena slapped him across the face and then shoved a warning finger at him, "It won't work, you know it won't work, and continuing to try it is cruel."</p><p>Sherlock's lip quirked at Leena's action and how utterly startled Mycroft looked that Leena had actually <em>hit</em> him.</p><p>"And, if it hasn't sunk in, tell me. I may have one good arm, but I've got two good legs to kick your shins with. Or maybe I'll aim higher this time!"</p><p>Mycroft just shook his head and took a step back, a hand on his stinging cheek.</p><p>"I'm afraid, brother dear, your Lady Bracknell was more convincing," Sherlock remarked.</p><p>Leena let out a breath and turned to John who appeared a little confused, taking a step back for good measure, having had his shin kicked by her in the past and not wanting to even be threatened with the same right now, "He was trying to goad Sherwood into killing him first, taking the choice from him, making it easier to choose."</p><p>"Which is why this is going to be so much harder," Sherlock remarked, turning to raise the gun at his brother, Leena catching sight of the briefest flicker of surprise in Eurus's expression on the monitor before she focused on the woman, watching her, knowing Sherlock was doing this so she could add to the profile, so she might have a chance to confirm the theory she'd shared with him while nearly choking to death.</p><p>"Sherlock…" John tried to speak, "It's ok, I'm…I'm ok with this," he tried to reason, not wanting Sherlock to have to kill anyone, but trying to think of who would have the best chance to save the plane and the little girl and he knew Leena would choose the child over herself too.</p><p>"Not in the face, though, please," Mycroft spoke, facing Sherlock, "I've promised my brain to the Royal Society."</p><p>Leena tilted her head, watching as Eurus leaned in close, curious and almost concerned, but far more interested to watch Mycroft be shot.</p><p>"Where would you suggest?" Sherlock asked Mycroft.</p><p>"Well," Mycroft fixed his tie, "I suppose there is a heart somewhere inside me. I don't imagine it's much of a target but why don't we try for that?"</p><p>John swallowed hard and stepped over, seeing Mycroft was determined, and stood beside the man, "Us," he told Sherlock, "Us for Leena," even as he said it, he nearly laughed, seeing Sherlock's eyes narrow at how he called her Leena and not Jackie. But, if he was about to die, he felt he was owed this one leniency.</p><p>"This is my fault," Mycroft looked to Sherlock, trying to tell him he deserved this fate, "Moriarty."</p><p>"Moriarty?" Sherlock frowned.</p><p>"Her Christmas treat: five minutes' conversation with Jim Moriarty five years ago."</p><p>"What did they discuss?"</p><p>Leena shook her head, "She wouldn't make it that easy."</p><p>Mycroft nodded, "Five minutes' conversation…unsupervised."</p><p>"Of course," Leena huffed under her breath.</p><p>Mycroft offered Sherlock an apologetic smile, "Goodbye, brother mine. No flowers by request," he moved his hands behind his back, ready.</p><p>"Jim Moriarty thought you'd make this choice," Eurus breathed, watching the goings-on with rapt attention, "He was so excited."</p><p>The lights turned red and Moriarty appeared on the monitor, "And here we are, at the end of the line. Holmes killing Holmes. This is where I get off."</p><p>The white lights came back, as did Eurus, "I always wondered what fratricide looked like," the woman murmured, fascinated.</p><p>"You're an idiot!" Leena finally snapped, though her tone was remarkably calm, all her experience handling psychopaths coming to the forefront, even when she was affected, she kept it controlled, "You and Moriarty both," Eurus merely tilted her head, "You may have known Sherwood as a child, Eurus, but <em>I</em> have known him since then and longer. If you knew him, at all, if you were truly as clever as you keep saying you are, you'd know that Sherwood would <em>never</em> shoot any of us," she looked over at him, "He'd take his own life before he ever harmed me."</p><p>Sherlock smirked, "My wife is right," he agreed, turning the gun on himself, actually feeling a thrill go through him with the motion.</p><p>Because <em>Eurus</em> didn't know.</p><p>They had managed to trick her, they were tricking her right now!</p><p>Oh, his wife should have been Lady Bracknell not Mycroft, she was fantastic!</p><p>Their coded messages, not even Mycroft could work out when they used it, and Eurus hadn't been there when they'd made it. He wouldn't have been able to warn Eurus of it, nor would Moriarty have known for he'd died before Sherlock had utilized it last time.</p><p>She hadn't been begging for her life with Eurus, she'd been giving HIM a message.</p><p>
  <em>Last chance, threaten your own life. Eurus is fixated on you. She won't let you be harmed.</em>
</p><p>He trusted her, her entire profile of Eurus hadn't been wrong yet, she'd anticipated nearly everything Eurus would do and so he knew she was right about this as well. Eurus WAS fixated on him, everything that happened had been geared around HIM, testing him, pushing him, punishing him, upsetting him. Eurus wouldn't ever let her plaything go, she'd keep him safe if just to poke him more.</p><p>"What are you doing?!" Eurus demanded, this time sounding actually <em>startled</em> that he had made such a decision.</p><p>Sherlock just kept the gun where it was, "A moment ago, a brave man asked to be remembered. I'm remembering the governor," he moved the muzzle right under his chin, his eyes locked on Leena's, "Ten…"</p><p>"No, no, Sherlock!" Eurus called.</p><p>John looked between Leena and Sherlock, knowing <em>something</em> was happening, but struggling to puzzle out what. But Sherlock had a gun aimed at himself and Leena <em>wasn't</em> tackling him or talking him down or stopping him…and Leena wouldn't just stand there staring at Eurus if it wasn't for a reason.</p><p>She wasn't worried!</p><p>Which he really hoped meant Sherlock wasn't actually going to do this...</p><p>"Nine," Sherlock continued to count, "Eight…"</p><p>"You <em>can't</em>!" Eurus leaned toward the camera, sounding almost frantic.</p><p>"Seven…"</p><p>"You don't know about Redbeard yet!" she tried to bait him, a desperation in her voice.</p><p>Sherlock kept the smirk off his face at that, all the confirmation he needed that Eurus, no matter what, would <em>not</em> let him go through with this if she was trying to stop him. She'd put an end to these tests and she'd not create any more that involved anything that would present him with a way to end his own life…which limited her future tricks.</p><p>"Six…" he continued to count down.</p><p>Leena could hear the anxiety spiking in Eurus's voice, "Sherlock!"</p><p>"Five…"</p><p>"Sherlock, stop that at once!" Eurus ordered, reaching forward to slam her hand on a button on the table, not seeming to realize that the three people closest to him in life weren't trying to stop him for a reason.</p><p>Leena winced as something struck her neck, seeing Sherlock, John, and Mycroft doing the same.</p><p>"Four…" Sherlock counted, reaching out to pull a small dart from his neck, muck like the others were doing, "Three…" he blinked the room starting to spin, "Two…" he only managed to slur out the last word before he felt himself falling backwards, catching sight of Leena falling to the side, onto her bad arm, before his world went black…</p><p>~8~</p><p>Sherlock jerked awake at a voice in his ear, the earpiece Mycroft had fitted all of them with to keep in touch still there, picking up the little girl from the plane.</p><p>"Hello?" she was calling.</p><p>He winced, his hand moving to his neck as he tried to look around at where he was, getting his bearings. It was a small rectangular room, black walls, black floor, he was lying on a rectangular wooden table with chairs on either side and a lit lantern on the floor. It was dark, he could tell, because there was no ceiling, revealing only the moon and stars in the night sky.</p><p>"Hello? Are you still there?"</p><p>He grunted, pushing himself up, "Yes," he groaned out, "Yeah, no, I'm…I'm still here. I'm here"</p><p>He nearly slid off the table, jolted by the knowledge that <em>he</em> was there…but he couldn't see the others, not Mycroft or John, not Leena. He had known this was a possibility, being separated, but he'd gambled that Eurus would focus on him and leave them alone. He wasn't sure he'd been that lucky now. He guessed that Leena would think something like that could happen, that Eurus would have planned for them to fight among each other to stop Sherlock killing two of them and that she'd need to sedate those fighting. Apparently the woman had used that to cut the test short first.</p><p>"You went away," the little girl accused, "You said you'd help me and you went away."</p><p>"Yes, I know. Well, I'm sorry about that. We must have got cut off. Um…" he shook his head fiercely, trying to clear his mind, focus, "How long was I away?"</p><p>"Hours. Hours and hours. Why don't grown-ups tell the truth?"</p><p>"No, I…I <em>am</em> telling the truth. You can trust me."</p><p>"Where did you go?"</p><p>"I'm not completely sure," he admitted, "Um, now, I tell you what. You…you've got to be really, really brave for me," he leaned over to pick up the lantern from the floor, moving to one of the walls, "Can you go to the front of the plane? Can you do that?"</p><p>"The front?"</p><p>"Yes," he frowned, noticing the pictures stuck to the walls, of him when he was a child. Some were ripped to shreds though, but the wall was covered in them, "That's right, the front."</p><p>"You mean where the driver is?"</p><p>"Yes, that's it."</p><p>"Ok. I'm going."</p><p>Sherlock froze when he moved to another wall, seeing it wasn't just his childhood photos. There were some when he was older, some of his family…some of John and Leena. There was an image from his wedding.</p><p>…and another when he and Leena brought Liberty home.</p><p>"Are you there yet?" he called out.</p><p>It wasn't the girl who responded though, but John, "Yeah, I'm here."</p><p>"John!"</p><p>"Yeah."</p><p>"Where are you?"</p><p>"I don't know. I've just woken up. Where are you?"</p><p>"I'm in another cell. I just spoke to the girl on the plane again. We've been out for hours."</p><p>"What, she's <em>still</em> up there?"</p><p>"Yes," he said, with a bit of hesitation, not sure if he should reveal what he and Leena had worked out…or if Eurus was listening in, but even if Leena hadn't given him a clue, the fact that the plane was still flying hours later would have been enough to tell him something was wrong there, "The plane will keep flying until it runs out of fuel. Is Leena with you? Mycroft?"</p><p>"I have no idea," John admitted, "I can hardly see anything…"</p><p>"I'm not there," Leena's voice joined John's over the earpiece, Sherlock letting out a breath of relief to hear her, "I'm in a room, there's light enough to see. I'm the only one here."</p><p>Sherlock stiffened at the small tremor in her voice, "What's wrong?"</p><p>"That light? It's a fire," she explained, "It's a bin, in the middle of the room. There's…a piece of metal sticking out of it, on an angle, with…things on it, rubbish. It's feeding the fire, as it burns the line goes down the ramp and fuels it."</p><p>"And?" that wouldn't be enough to alarm her.</p><p>"And there's a canister of gasoline at the end of it…and I'm chained to the wall," she told him, "There's nothing else here to reach and I can't make it to the bin…"</p><p>Sherlock's heart stopped, imagining the sight, the rubbish slowly moving down the beam to the fire, trickling down as it burned. He could picture the canister reaching the fire, falling in, igniting…taking Leena with it.</p><p>They had survived two explosions, he would not let this be the one that got her.</p><p>"John?" Sherlock called out, "Tell me anything you can about where you are."</p><p>"The walls are rough," John spoke, "They're rock, I guess."</p><p>"What are you standing on?"</p><p>"Uh, stone, I think. But listen, there's about two feet of water. And…chains. Yeah, my feet are chained up. I can feel something," he shuffled a bit, "Bones, Sherlock. There are bones in here."</p><p>Sherlock, who had moved over to the table to examine it for clues, frowned, seeing something under it. He crouched down and reached for the round ceramic bowl lying there.</p><p>"What kind of bones?" Leena asked John.</p><p>"Uh, I dunno. Small..."</p><p>"Redbeard," Sherlock breathed, seeing the name painted on the side of the bowl.</p><p>There was a crackle in his ear and the girl was back, "Who's Redbeard?"</p><p>"Oh, hello. Are you at the front of the plane now?"</p><p>"Yeah. I still can't wake the driver up."</p><p>"That's alright," Sherlock nodded to himself, truly convinced now that he and Leena were right about the plane and the little girl, because of the pilots. Because she could see them, access them, "What can you see now?"</p><p>"I can see a river. And there's…there's…there's a big wheel."</p><p>"Alright. Well, you and I are going to have to drive this plane together. Just you and me."</p><p>"We are?"</p><p>"Yeah, there's nothing to it. We just need to get in touch with some people on the ground," he leaned over to pick up the lantern once more, "Now, um, can you see anything that looks like a radio?"</p><p>"No."</p><p>"That's alright. Well, we…keep looking. We've got plenty of time…" but then the girl screamed, "What's wrong?"</p><p>"The whole plane's shaking."</p><p>"It's just turbulence. It's nothing to worry about."</p><p>"My ears hurt."</p><p>"Does the river look like it's getting closer?"</p><p>"A little bit."</p><p>"Alright, then. That means you're nearly home…" he flinched at the sound of feedback.</p><p>"Sherwood?" Leena's voice was back, "Where are YOU?"</p><p>"I'm not sure yet…"</p><p>"I can tell you where I am," John offered, "I'm in a well. That's where I am, I'm in the bottom of a well."</p><p>"But there are no wells in Sherrinford," Leena said, having memorized the schematics before they went there, courtesy of Mycroft.</p><p>"Why is there a draught?" Sherlock murmured to himself, when something caught his eye, a photo of him as a teenager, him and Leena posing for his parents to take pictures before they went to a formal dance together. It was fluttering, like there was a breeze behind it. He moved over and looked down, able to see a small gap in the floor, "Walls don't contract after you've painted them," he stated, before looking up at the wall and reaching out to give it a firm push.</p><p>It fell forward…to reveal a partially burned manor house.</p><p>"I'm home," he called to John and Leena, "Musgrave Hall."</p><p>His head turned to the side, seeing a flicker of light in a high window nearer the back of the house…and he knew, without a doubt, that had to be the room Leena was being kept in, where the fire was burning.</p><p>"Me and Jim Moriarty, we got on like a house on fire..." Eurus voice came over the earpiece, and Sherlock knew, wherever she was, she could see him, had seen his gaze's direction, she was taunting him now with Leena's life, "Which reminded me of home."</p><p>Sherlock leaned over and picked up the lantern as the other three walls fell down, hurrying down the fallen wall and towards the house, "Yeah, it's just an old building. I don't care."</p><p>"Sweet Jim. He was never very interested in being alive, especially if he could make more trouble being dead."</p><p>"Yeah, still not interested."</p><p>"You knew he'd take his revenge. His revenge, apparently, is me."</p><p>"Eurus," Sherlock huffed, shoving the front door of the manor open, "I don't care. I don't care about Moriarty, I don't care about your games. All I care about is finding my wife and John Watson and stopping you hurting them."</p><p>"I won't hurt them," Eurus told him, "If you find Redbeard first," there was a flicker of light in a hallway beside the stairs where a screen standing on a bureau flickered on to reveal Eurus's face, clearly not in the governor's office any longer for the background was dark, "I'm letting the water in now. You don't want me to drown another one of your pets, do you? At long last, Sherlock Holmes, it's time to solve the Musgrave ritual."</p><p>Sherlock glared at the monitor.</p><p>"Your very first case! And the final problem. Oh. Bye bye."</p><p>"Sherlock?" John called over the earpiece.</p><p>"I that am lost," Eurus began to sing, "Oh, who will find me, deep down below the old beech tree? Help succor me now. The East Winds blow…"</p><p>Sherlock paused, about to go up the stairs, when he heard an odd noise, like water pouring and fire crackling at the same time and turned, pushing open a door to a room and staring in horror. There was a monitor there, a split screen, showing John…at the bottom of a well while water poured into it, and Leena, chained to a wall with a collar around her neck, trying to pull it off the wall while a bin burned, he could see the canister she mentioned halfway to the bin already.</p><p>"Sixteen by six, brother, and under we go…" Sherlock grit his teeth as Eurus continued to sing.</p><p>But there was a pause in it when the little girl's voice called out, "Help me! Help me, please!"</p><p>And then he could hear John calling his name, Leena muttering curses in French under her breath as she struggled.</p><p>"Be not afraid…" Eurus picked up again.</p><p>"Leena," he called out, "John, both of you, you'll be ok. I'm going to find you. I <em>am</em> finding you!"</p><p>"Well, hurry up, please, because I don't have long!" John shouted, the sound of water over the earpiece now.</p><p>He winced when the little girl screamed in his ear, "It's leaning over, the whole plane!"</p><p>"Sherwood," Leena spoke now, "Don't worry about us," she reassure him, "Don't focus on who to save first. That's not the point. You <em>know</em> what to do to make it stop. Focus on <em>that</em>."</p><p>He let out a breath, trying so hard not to let his worry and fear for his wife and friend cloud his thought process. She was right, it wasn't about saving them, trying to rescue one and then the other wouldn't work, just like in Sherrinford. This was a game to Eurus, but each trap, each trick, she revealed more of herself and the chaos in her head.</p><p>To save John and Leena, he had to solve Eurus's final problem, Redbeard, and then she'd stop.</p><p>A part of him knew that if he solved it, she may well kill Leena and John anyway.</p><p>But he knew where Leena was, at least, he could make it to her, he'd break down the damn door if he had to, and Eurus would have to stop it, or else he'd die too in the explosion.</p><p>"Eurus," he called out, moving back into the hall, "You said the answer's in the song but I went through the song line by line all those years ago," he could remember it now, with this same fear filling him, how he'd searched through the woods and the marsh as a child, "And I found nothing. I couldn't find anything. And there…there was a beech tree in the grounds and I dug. I dug and dug and dug and dug. Sixteen feet by six, sixteen yards, sixteen meters, and I found <em>nothing</em>. No one."</p><p>"…no one?" Leena's voice repeated the last word, "Sherlock…" she hesitated and a look over his shoulder at the monitor showed that she had stopped her efforts, shocked by that particular word and how it slipped out without him realizing.</p><p>"It was a clever little puzzle, wasn't it?" Eurus taunted, "So why couldn't you work it out, Sherlock?"</p><p>He could hear Leena swallow over the earpiece, "'No one'…you don't say no one for a <em>dog</em>."</p><p>Sherlock frowned, not following…</p><p>But then John cut in, "Oh god…Sherlock," he sounded reluctant and devastated, picking up what Leena had, the part he'd blocked out that even now wasn't coming through, "The bones I found..."</p><p>"They're dogs' bones," Sherlock insisted, something inside him, even now, urging it to be that, "That's Redbeard."</p><p>"Mycroft's been lying to us," John stated.</p><p>"They're not dogs' bones, are they?" Leena guessed.</p><p>"Remember Daddy's allergy?" Eurus baited him, "What was he allergic to? What would he never let you have all those times you begged? Well, he'd never let you have a dog. Or at least he didn't till afterward. After I was gone. Because you were upset you told yourself a better story. And mummy couldn't bear to see you so heartbroken, so she convinced him. But only <em>after</em>."</p><p>Sherlock stumbled back, recalling it now. He'd…he'd been so upset that Redbeard had run away, Leena had picked up on it shortly after they met. She'd pestered Mycroft about it endlessly till he'd told her about the dog. And so she'd used her birthday money (with help from Mycroft) to let him pick out another puppy, and it had become Redbeard, the one in most of his memories, the one he played with, the one he trained, the one they had to put down.</p><p>In his trauma, he'd buried most of his memories of the first Redbeard, only remembering the image of him and the knowledge that he'd run away and been lost and he'd been so upset.</p><p>Leena had made him smile again.</p><p>It explained why his father had been so droopy for so many years, he could see it now. Taking medicine to minimize his allergy, never wanting to spend time with the dog, talking so funny like he had a constant cold and stuffed nose when he forgot his medication.</p><p>His father was allergic, and his mother convinced him, <em>begged</em> him, to let Sherlock have the dog, to help him cope…</p><p>And now he remembered why.</p><p>Because Redbeard, the first Redbeard…<em>hadn't</em> been a dog.</p><p>They'd <em>never</em> had a dog until afterwards, until his mind had told him a different story of what happened, until he blocked it out and Leena got him one herself.</p><p>The first Redbeard hadn't been a dog…he'd been a <em>child</em>, with red hair, who loved playing pirates with him.</p><p>"Victor…" Sherlock breathed, the memories coming through now, "Victor Trevor."</p><p>"Sherwood?" Leena tried to call, but he was shaking his head, tears streaming down his face as he remembered the boy.</p><p>"Now it's coming," Eurus smirked.</p><p>"We played pirates," he remembered, "I was Yellowbeard and he was…" he felt ill, as though he might vomit, "He was Redbeard."</p><p>"Oh my god," Leena breathed in his ear, John letting out a quiet curse of his own as the situation revealed itself to them too.</p><p>It explained the trauma far more than a burning house did.</p><p>"You were inseparable," Eurus huffed, "But <em>I</em> wanted to play too."</p><p>Sherlock closed his eyes tightly, his mind racing as he tried his hardest to push the memories aside. His wife and his friend were still in danger and…it was clear in Eurus's tone that she hadn't liked other people taking his time away from her, he had to find a way to stop this, but the memories wouldn't quiet, "What…" he struggled to focus, "What did you <em>do</em>?"</p><p>It was obvious though, his stomach revolted, if John found a child's bones in the well, what else could it be…that Victor had been trapped at the bottom of the well, drowned, as Eurus herself kept calling him.</p><p>His sister had killed his best friend, and she was on the verge of doing it again, and worse.</p><p>Eurus sighed and began to sing again, slowly, more pointedly, as though she were trying to explain something to an idiot, "I that am lost, oh, who will find me deep down below the old beech tree?" she hummed again, "Deep waters, Sherlock, all your life. In all your dreams. Deep waters."</p><p>"You killed him," he looked at Eurus's face on the monitor, devastated, "You killed my best friend!"</p><p>"I never had a best friend," Eurus spoke, enunciating each word, anger in her voice, "I had no one. <em>No one.</em>"</p><p>"Locksley," Leena's voice cut through his grief, a faint cough in the pause that followed, "Soldier," she reminded him, "That's John. Profiler, that's me. Detective, that's you. Idiot, that's Mycroft. Psychopath, that's her," she fell quiet a moment again, sounding like she was pressing her mouth to her shoulder to cover another set of coughs, "Be smart, be safe, solve this. You know what to do. Look at the clues…"</p><p>Sherlock swallowed hard, taking a deep breath, his mind racing to everything he knew, from what Leena had prepped him on involving Psychopaths, to clues they had picked up along the way of the traps set, to the rhyme Eurus kept singing, and to every word she'd ever spoken…</p><p>No one.</p><p>Those two words stuck out at him, his mind jumping back to AJ, to Ammo, to Amo, to how it was one word that sounded the same but was a completely different word. And how some words were said differently but were the same thing.</p><p>No one, Nemo.</p><p>He could remember a gravestone in the false cemetery just outside, Nemo Holmes, with the incorrect dates, dates and names he'd memorized as a child because they were his favorite part of the house, a part no one else bothered with…a part only HE would know.</p><p>This was all about Eurus and her fixations, and she was fixated on HIM. If she made that riddle for HIM to solve she would have done it in a way where only he could work it out because only HE had the cypher.</p><p>He turned and ran out of the house to the cemetery.</p><p>"Hello?" the little girl's voice called out, "Are you there?"</p><p>"Sorry, busy," he cut in, not about to play that game any longer, it didn't matter, not when he knew the truth behind that trap too, "I'm trying to solve a puzzle."</p><p>"But what about the plane?" the girl tried to lure him in.</p><p>"The puzzle will save the plane," he muttered to himself, it would put an end to that and stop what was happening to John and Leena. He quickly began to search the stones for the dates and names, "The wrong dates. She used the wrong dates on the gravestones as the key to the cipher and the cipher was the song."</p><p>"Is this strictly relevant?" John shouted, struggling clear in his voice.</p><p>"I imagine so," Leena spoke, calm despite the wheeze he could hear in her voice, "He wouldn't be distracted by anything other than how to stop this."</p><p>He put his attention on the gravestone, the numbers 134 – 1719, age 28, etched there, and to the other stones, putting their numbers up in his mind palace.</p><p>"The lights are getting closer," the little girl cried.</p><p>"Hush, now, working," he waved her off, imagining the words of the song above the numbers in his mind's eye, he could remember it now, every line, every verse, more than the one she kept repeating.</p><p>I that am lost, oh who will find me?<br/>Deep down below the old beech tree<br/>Help succor me now the east winds blow<br/>Sixteen by six, brother, and under we go!</p><p>Be not afraid to walk in the shade<br/>Save one, save all, come try!<br/>My steps - five by seven<br/>Life is closer to Heaven<br/>Look down, with dark gaze, from on high.</p><p>Before he was gone, right back over my hill<br/>Who now will find him?<br/>Why, nobody will<br/>Doom shall I bring to him, I that am queen<br/>Lost forever, nine by nineteen.</p><p>Without your love, he'll be gone before<br/>Save pity for strangers, show love the door.<br/>My soul seek the shade of my willow's bloom<br/>Inside, brother mine, let Death make a room.</p><p>He nodded to himself, sure he'd gotten it all, "Let's number the words of the song," he pictured numbers moving above the words in the song, "Then rearrange the numbered words to match the sequence on the gravestones. 1-3-4, I am Lost. 17-19, Help me. 28, Brother."</p><p>He let out a breath, erasing any word that didn't have a number that matched the gravestone dates, bringing up what remained of the message from the song.</p><p>"9-15-20, Save my life. 1-8-18, Before my doom. 20-26-28, I am lost. 1-2-3, without your love. 8-16-17-8-22-32, Save my soul, seek my room."</p><p>His eyes flew to the house, the last three words telling him where this would end, in Eurus' old bedroom. He grabbed the lantern off the ground and ran for the house.</p><p>"We're going to crash!" the girl cried out in his ear, "I'm going to die!"</p><p>Sherlock grit his teeth as he ran through the gate of the house, to the front, and burst through the door, racing up the stairs, "I think it's time you told me your real name."</p><p>"I'm not allowed to tell my name to strangers," she sniffled.</p><p>"I'm not a stranger," he ran down a hall to a door, "I'm your brother."</p><p>He pushed the door open and looked down, seeing Eurus sitting on an old sheet, her knees curled up to her chest, her arms around her legs, her eyes closed, sobbing.</p><p>"I'm here, Eurus," he said, not sure if she was even aware of what was happening before her.</p><p>"You're playing with me, Sherlock," she sniffled, a faint smile on her face, though her voice was distorted by the mic she had used earlier, disguising it as a child's voice, "We're playing the game."</p><p>"The game," he nodded, "Yes. I get it now," he took a step towards her, looking around the room for any sort of control to be seen to stop what was happening to John and Leena, "The song was never a set of directions."</p><p>"I'm in the plane," her voice shook, still child-like, "And I'm going to crash."</p><p>He eyed her a moment, before crouching down in front of her</p><p>"And you're going to save me."</p><p>He had to be careful, right now, in this moment. He had to put aside the anger and fear and resentment he felt for this woman, for all she had done to him and his wife and brother and friends, the harm she'd caused, the lives she'd ended. Too much was at stake to fail now at talking her down. And he knew HE was the only one who had a shot at doing so.</p><p>Leena had named it, right from the start, she had profiled this very instance even if she hadn't realized it at the moment.</p><p>Psychopaths had a deep desire to be loved and cared for.</p><p>After being denied a friendship with her brother, being taken away before she had a chance to forge one with the competition gone, being locked away from her entire family…she <em>craved</em> it more than anything. All those years, all that fixation on just wanting to play with her big brother…the thing she wanted most was to be his sister, to play with him again.</p><p>If he rejected her now…he knew the consequences would be far worse than anything he could imagine. Not only would she not hesitate to kill Leena and John, but his rejection now would likely make her psychosis worse. Instead of wanting his attention and wanting to play, in her own twisted way, she would likely devolve into killing him, wanting him dead because if he didn't want to play with her then she wouldn't play with him and no one else would either. If he talked about getting her back into custody at Sherinford, any hesitation or consideration she had would be gone.</p><p>He couldn't risk that.</p><p>He had made the mistake of looking at Eurus and seeing only his missing sister, locked away, whereas Leena had seen it from a distance, a psychopath to be wary around at all times.</p><p>He would not make that mistake now, even if it meant playing the role of big brother and appearing as though he saw her as his sister.</p><p>He would do so carefully.</p><p>His heart broke at the thought that he had to play that role rather than genuinely feeling it. This woman, she could have been so different, their relationship could have been so real, if things had been different. Part of him blamed Mycroft, for taking her away, for not protecting and helping Eurus the way he had HIM. He felt for this girl, this broken, sad girl, who was lonely and just wanted her brother to play with her. That wasn't an act. But another part of him could not and would not forget that she had killed people, both as a child and an adult, and he had to make sure it stopped.</p><p>"Look how brilliant you are," he began gently, "Your mind has created the perfect metaphor. A bit too literal," he tried to tease, though it felt foreign to him, he and Mycroft had never had a teasing sort of relationship, "You forgot that the doors on planes don't open except from the cockpit, your 'drivers' were asleep at the controls, no one to open the door," he forced a chuckle, grateful Leena had tapped out the word 'door' during the second test, which led him to realize what she had.</p><p>The girl on the plane wasn't real.</p><p>Leena spent more time on planes than he did, than Eurus likely ever had, he wouldn't have thought of that but she had. The doors couldn't be open if the pilots were asleep, or one of them would have fallen asleep at the door. The girl on the plane shouldn't have been able to see them, let alone make it all the way into the cockpit. Sometimes that was all it took, just one thing that couldn't happen for a story to fall apart.</p><p>"You're high above us, all alone in the sky, and you understand everything except how to land," he shifted so he could sit before her, "Now, I'm just an idiot, but I'm on the ground…" he hesitated, swallowing hard and taking a breath before he reached out to touch her hands, "I can bring you home."</p><p>"No," she shook her head, and there was a faint click, allowing her voice to return to normal, "No, no. It's too late now."</p><p>He couldn't help but nod slightly even though her eyes were shut. He agreed, in some form, again partly blaming Mycroft for allowing it to get this far, but the fact that she seemed <em>aware</em> that what she'd done was wrong meant something. He doubted she understood WHAT was wrong about it, he doubted she felt what she'd done was wrong, but she knew enough that HE would find it wrong, that HE would be hurt by it, and she at least acknowledged she'd done too much to him for him not to think so.</p><p>In another way, it was also true, because she'd manipulated so many things by now that he couldn't even fully trust that this reaction of hers was genuine and not another manipulation. Maybe, on some level, she even realized it was too late for him to ever trust her. He had to be careful, psychopaths, while not always understanding emotion or feeling it, could sometimes replicate it, especially if it meant using it to trick others. For all he knew, especially without Leena there to assess it all, this could be another trick, a ruse to guilt him, to lower his defenses, to get him to 'believe' her and defend her or something else.</p><p>"No, it's not," he tried to keep his voice calm and genuine, recalling each and every time Leena had talked someone down or broke some sort of tragic news to them, "It's not too late."</p><p>"Every time I close my eyes," her voice shook as she sobbed, "I'm on the plane. I'm lost, lost in the sky and no one can hear me."</p><p>"Open your eyes," he told her gently, "<em>I'm</em> here," that was what she wanted, she wanted her brother's love back, and if that would free the others, he would let her have that as carefully as he could, "You're not lost anymore," he added when she finally opened her eyes and looked at him. He shifted closer and tugged her into a hug, not wanting her to see his face or how he struggled to smile at her. He let out a relieved breath when she shuffled forward and hugged him in return, lightly crying, accepting his offer, and he knew he'd made the right choice, handled this correctly. But there was more to do, more to stop, and he didn't have time, "Now, you…you just…you just went the wrong way last time, that's all," he didn't have to fake how tearful his voice had grown, both that he had to phrase it that way when the pain was still so raw to him, to downplay what she had done, make it seem as though it were a forgivable offense, and for how genuinely hurt he was. There WAS a sympathy for her, to be so clever but not understand so much. He had had Leena there, chipping away at his walls, helping him understand other people and working so hard to understand HIM, Eurus hadn't had that, "You should have waited," he mused, "If I had Victor…perhaps you would have had Leena instead."</p><p>Wasn't that a thought.</p><p>If Eurus had never done what she had, he would have stayed friends with Victor, he would have been at that age where girls were 'gross' and had little to do with her. Eurus would have been a lonely little girl and Leena, she would have been too kind to reject the girl for merely being younger than her. For all he knew, maybe Eurus would have turned out differently if she'd had a best friend, if she'd had someone in her life like Leena.</p><p>Part of him almost wished it had happened, for the possibility of sparing his sister becoming what she was and the life she'd led, but another part refused to imagine it. Because he would never want a world where Leena wasn't his.</p><p>A traitorous voice in the back of his head whispered why couldn't she have been still? What if she had been Eurus's best friend and not his and, as he grew, as girls became less 'gross' and more tolerable, maybe he would have liked her? Maybe they would have still been together and gotten married and maybe Eurus would have reacted differently to losing her friend because she'd be gaining a sister?</p><p>He shook his head, he couldn't afford to get lost in his thoughts and imaginings right now, "This time," he murmured, "Get it right," he took a breath, "Tell me how to save Leena and John."</p><p>Eurus sniffled and pulled away to look at him.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Leena gasped when the door to the room crashed open, Sherlock having shoved it with his shoulder, breaking in. He didn't spare her a glance, which she appreciated, for he instead ran straight for the canister that was mere inches away from the licking flames and pulled it away. He heaved a deep breath of relief and turned to her, moving right to her side, a key in hand, and unlocked the manacle around her neck before he gathered her into his arms.</p><p>She closed her eyes for a moment, early sagging against him in her own relief that he'd done it. She never doubted him, she had given him enough clues and suggestions for how to handle Eurus, given her psychosis, that she didn't doubt he'd be able to get through to the woman and get her to stop these twisted games. She took a breath as he helped her up, though he didn't release her, until they heard a shuffling by the door.</p><p>They looked over to see Eurus in the doorway, holding up a second key.</p><p>~8~</p><p>They had gotten to John just in time, right as the authorities arrived really. It appeared, wherever Mycroft had been deposited, he had worked out her next move would be Musgrave and alerted Lestrade to head there. One of the vehicles that arrived had some rope for equipment and they were able to send it down to John to help him keep above water while another officer rappelled down a second rope with the key to release him from his chains.</p><p>Leena would have laughed at the fact that Sherlock Holmes had wrapped her in a shock blanket, had it not been for the very real fact that she might actually be going into shock now that this was all over, though she couldn't be sure. John was nearby, wrapped in a blanket himself, though he was very wet, the water had nearly reached his chin when they got to him.</p><p>Sherlock had his arm wrapped around her shoulders as they stood, watching Eurus be led away in cuffs, still looking tearful, but cooperating as she was moved to a police van.</p><p>"I just spoke to your brother," Lestrade spoke as he approached.</p><p>"How is he?" Leena asked, more curious to where he'd been stuffed away than if he was physically injured. She still owed him a kick to the shins for all this.</p><p>"He's a bit shaken up, that's all. She didn't hurt him, she just locked him in her old cell."</p><p>"What goes around comes around," John murmured.</p><p>"Yeah. Give me a moment, boys," he turned to head over to where some of his men were waiting, having secured Eurus in the back of the van.</p><p>"Oh, um, Mycroft," Sherlock called out, "Make sure he's looked after. He's not as strong as he thinks he is."</p><p>Lestrade nodded, "Yeah, I'll take care of it."</p><p>"Thanks, Greg."</p><p>Leena smiled as he got the name right without any prodding from her, much to the shock of John and Lestrade before the man continued on his way to begin the extraction of Eurus.</p><p>Leena hummed, observing the van, Eurus just barely visible through the window in the back, her head bowed, "It's funny, in a sad sort of way. If she weren't absolutely mad, we might have been good friends..." she trailed off as another thought came to her, "It…makes sense now," she murmured.</p><p>"What does?" Sherlock looked at her.</p><p>She smiled gently up at him, if a bit sadly, "Why you let <em>me</em> in and no one else."</p><p>It had been something that niggled at her for years, once she was old enough to realize her friend was different and treated people who weren't her differently. Why <em>her</em>? What was so special about her that he allowed her to be his friend? That he <em>stayed</em> friends with her? That he loved her when he felt it was something he didn't need or want? Every girl liked to think she was 'just that special' when it came to a man like Sherlock Holmes, but she wasn't naïve enough to think that, so there had to have been something else that nudged him towards her. Over the years, she cared less and less about what that something was and was just grateful he'd let her in at all. Now though...she was getting a clearer picture.</p><p>"Maybe," she continued, "Somewhere in your mind, you knew there was a girl missing in your life, and when I came around, it...filled a void."</p><p>Like Redbeard had. Getting that actual dog had filled a void Victor had left, had reaffirmed the idea that the first one had been a dog too, made it easier to believe. Maybe with Eurus missing, something in him had been looking for a little girl to...not take her spot, but make it easier to cope with the thing being missing.</p><p>"I never looked at you like a sister," Sherlock said without preamble, not wanting her to ever think she was some sort of stand-in for Eurus, a sister to him.</p><p>Leena smiled up at him, "Nor you a brother."</p><p>He nodded, pleased and reassured, and glanced over at the van, "If I became the man I am because of Eurus," Sherlock considered, turning back to her, "Then we grew the relationship we have because of her. If not for her…" he didn't finish, he didn't want to think about a life where Leena wasn't there.</p><p>"Think she'd appreciate a fruit basket?" Leena joked, earning a laugh from Sherlock as he wound his arm around her and just held her close, "Well done, Sherwood," she murmured.</p><p>"You ok?" John asked, eyeing the man as he frowned, moving to watch Eurus through the glass of the van.</p><p>"I said I'd bring her home. I can't, can I?"</p><p>"Home…" Leena began, trying to take a breath, but coughing slightly, "Home is relative. Home is what you make it, and the people you make it of," she looked up at him, "YOU are my home, Sherlock."</p><p>Sherlock smiled down at her, "Mutual."</p><p>"Maybe that's it for her, too," John suggested, "Home. Family. Maybe she just wanted to be remembered."</p><p>Sherlock fell silent, thinking about that, about the reasons Eurus might have done all this now, about what possible things he could do to prevent it happening in the future.</p><p>Leena snorted.</p><p>"What?" John looked at her.</p><p>She poked a hand out from her blanket and pointed at Sherlock, "I know that face," she remarked, "I would <em>not</em> want to be Mycroft."</p><p>Sherlock merely grinned, quite evilly.</p><p>~8~</p><p>Leena was delighted to be present while she was proven right, watching as Mrs. Holmes stood before a seated Mycroft in his office, chewing him out. Anyone who thought Mary was a scary sight when she was angry, never encountered an irate Mrs. Holmes, and she wasn't talking about herself this time. Sherlock's mother and father were across the room from them, in front of Mycroft's desk while they stood at the back of the office, watching and away from the crossfire.</p><p>Sherlock, because Mycroft deserved it after everything that happened in keeping secret Eurus's existence, had put on quite the show of turning up at his parents' home with Leena, in tears, about Eurus, and how she was alive and 'how could Mycroft separate me from my sister, you from your daughter?'</p><p>And from then it was sit back and watch the fireworks.</p><p>He really <em>did</em> deserve it.</p><p>Stacking up all the mistakes he'd made in handling Eurus over his life, too many of them were made when he was an adult who should have known better than a child still trying to understand.</p><p>"Alive?!" Mrs. Holmes was snapping at her eldest son, a part of her had likely thought that perhaps Sherlock and Leena had just been mistaken, but when she confronted Mycroft and he affirmed it…she was <em>furious</em>, "For all these years?! How is that even possible?!"</p><p>"What Uncle Rudy began…" Mycroft hesitated to say, unable to meet his mother's eyes when she was on a tangent like this, "I thought it best to continue."</p><p>"I'm not asking how you did it, idiot boy, I'm asking <em>how could you</em>?!"</p><p>"I was trying to be <em>kind</em>," he defended.</p><p>"Kind?!" the woman nearly screamed, "<em>Kind</em>?" before breaking down in tears, which was almost worse, "You told us that our daughter was dead."</p><p>"Better that than tell you what she had become," he snapped, before wincing and looking away, "I'm sorry."</p><p>Leena couldn't help but shake her head at that. Even now she didn't know everything about Eurus, her treatment, her isolations, what Mycroft might have done to help her. But, from what she'd seen, she got the feeling that was as close as Mycroft would ever get to admitting he'd made a mistake in caring for Eurus. That she'd BECOME this, not that she had always been it. Somewhere along the line, she'd developed into this, and that happened under Mycroft's watch.</p><p>Mr. Holmes sighed and stood, frowning down at Mycroft, seeming to come to the same conclusion, "Whatever she became, whatever she is now, Mycroft…she remains our daughter."</p><p>"And my sister," Mycroft reminded them.</p><p>"Then you should have done better," Mrs. Holmes declared.</p><p>Sherlock had to speak up at that, a bolt of empathy for his brother, knowing how much he valued doing well and doing the best by his parents, "He did his best."</p><p>"Then he's very limited."</p><p>"He made the right choice," Leena spoke, surprisingly in defense of Mycroft, "Went about it in completely the wrong way, should have gotten specialists or someone trained to help, never should have resorted to isolation, and shouldn't have lied…but he did make the right choice."</p><p>For the current moment, at least.</p><p>Eurus displayed traits, from what she'd observed since this all happened, that told her it might have, MIGHT have, been possible…not to rehabilitate Eurus, not even have her function in society as normal, but perhaps not be as much a danger if things had been handled differently. If they had been able to notice Eurus's tendencies earlier, identify them for what it was, if they had observed her fixation on Sherlock and her loathing for Victor…perhaps if something had been done earlier Eurus would have at least been able to live in the outside world. There were so many things that children, no matter how brilliant they might be, didn't understand or didn't know how to process, anger, jealousy, sorrow, they had to be taught how to cope with them in healthy ways. Children lashed out, when they were angry they hit, when they were jealous they broke things, when they were sad they threw tantrums. Eurus was the same, she just couldn't register those emotions as actual feelings, she probably didn't even display them in typical ways, if something had been done...there could have been a chance for her.</p><p>She was clever, she could learn to adapt even if she would never understand.</p><p>But now? After all that happened, the choices Mycroft made, there was no way to safely allow Eurus out ever again, not for a very long time at least and that was only if Mycroft submitted to finding someone trained and well enough to help Eurus learn. Which she doubted, he was very set in his ways and it had been too long. And she had done too much to never be seen as a danger again.</p><p>"Where is she?" Mr. Holmes demanded of his eldest.</p><p>"Back in Sherrinford," Mycroft stated, "Secure, this time," he looked at his parents when they seemed about to protest, "People have <em>died</em>," he reminded them, "Your daughter killed four people and caused another to kill himself, before trying to kill John Watson and Leena, twice."</p><p>He couldn't add himself to the list even if Eurus's intent had been for Sherlock and 1 person to move on to the final problem, it hadn't actually happened.</p><p>Leena, however, HAD nearly been killed twice and John once.</p><p>His words were enough though, his parents fell silent, shifting and looking down, all to aware of how this could have been a norm for their daughter given the pictures they'd seen of Sherlock dead in her drawings. But now they'd never know if there had been ways to help her move past it.</p><p>"She killed Victor Trevor," Leena added gently, reaching out to take Sherlock's hand when he inhaled sharply, but they deserved to know, "She got him down the bottom of a well and left him there, to die of starvation or drowning or the cold…"</p><p>"Without doubt she <em>will</em> kill again if she has the opportunity," Mycroft spoke, pulling his parents' attention back, "There's no possibility she'll ever be able to leave."</p><p>Leena refrained from adding 'now' to the end of that, Mycroft was being beaten up enough by his parents already.</p><p>"When can we see her?" his father asked.</p><p>"There's no point," Mycroft told them.</p><p>"How <em>dare</em> you say that?" his mother nearly snapped.</p><p>But he sighed, "There's no point because she won't <em>talk</em>. She won't communicate with anyone in any way. She has passed beyond our view. There are no words that can reach her now."</p><p>"She's not talking because she's learned it's <em>bad</em>," Leena cut in, shaking her head at Mycroft trying to make it more dramatic than it was, "She talks, others listen. And the last time others listened, her brother was hurt and upset. She won't risk that a second time. So she just won't talk. So that Sherlock knows she doesn't want to upset him. Because if she's good, maybe he'll come and play with her," she looked between the Holmes family as they stared at her, "Basic Psychology."</p><p>"Then I'll play with her," Sherlock offered, not for anyone's sake but his parents, because they looked truly upset, "But if she won't speak…"</p><p>"PLAY with her," Leena urged and he looked at her, "Not all communication is done verbally," she reminded him, her expression clearly reading 'is it?'</p><p>He began to smile, "Give her her violin back," Sherlock told Mycroft, "And give Leena and I access to visit whenever we want."</p><p>Mycroft frowned at that, "I don't…"</p><p>"I won't go without Leena," Sherlock appeased, "As she's proven, she's more than capable of handling a psychotic Holmes."</p><p>Leena got the distinct impression he meant to add 'she's dealt with us her entire life' to that but he kept quiet, though he sent her a wink.</p><p>"She needs something positive," Sherlock continued to explain to Mycroft, "She fractured and started on this path because I didn't spend enough time with my little sister. Do you want to risk her breaking down again or deciding that being silent isn't working?"</p><p>Mycroft was silent a long while, considering that. It…<em>did</em> make sense. If Sherlock appeared and spent even some semblance of time with Eurus, was able to offer the woman the connection she kept looking for…maybe it would placate her enough to keep her subdued and on good behavior.</p><p>Like the treats he would give her for her help.</p><p>This would be a treat for her behaving.</p><p>"Fine."</p><p>~8~</p><p>And so it began, just about twice a month, Sherlock and Leena would make the trip to Sherrinford on a Sunday afternoon, alone, entrusting Liberty to Mary and John for those few hours, much like the Watsons would leave Hamish with them on Friday afternoons so they could have some time as well. While they understood Eurus and her psychosis, while they had some shred of trust in Mycroft's updated security, they would never, ever risk their daughter or bring her anywhere near Eurus.</p><p>Sometimes, Leena felt, Sherlock looked forward to the trips, being able to play his violin to his heart's content, a way to try and reach out to Eurus, to play with her but on his own terms and in a way HE controlled. Other times it seemed like Sherlock only made these trips to placate Eurus and keep her from trying to come after his family again.</p><p>She knew he felt some sympathy for the woman, that, with his memories back, he was torn about it. On the one hand, she was his sister and, as big brother, he should look out for her and be there for her as family did. On the other hand, she had killed his best friend, tried to kill his next best friend, and almost murdered his wife twice and after the trauma she put him through it was difficult to feel that sibling bond he somewhat had with Mycroft. Part of him wished she could get better, but a bigger part of him knew that he had to keep her at a distance and not fall into the trap of 'sister' ever again for that was when he'd failed the most.</p><p>She'd woken on more than one occasion to Sherlock in the throes of a nightmare, the man waking, terrified that Eurus had succeeded and he'd lost her, to the smoke or the fire. He had nightmares that Eurus forced his hand, somehow manipulated him, or reprogrammed him to take her life instead of John or Mycroft's. Sometimes he would dream that it had been Leena and Liberty hanging from the window and Eurus dropping them, or Leena tied to the chair and Eurus shooting her.</p><p>They were not things he would ever recover from quickly, it would take time. Perhaps, one day, when he could study Eurus's condition, train himself up more, he might be able to come to terms with what she'd done. He understood her mind worked differently than others, that there were things she should feel that she didn't, things she didn't understand beyond a textbook definition. He understood she wasn't well after so long alone, but a part of him couldn't push past the harm she had caused.</p><p>Had she been any other psychopath, he'd have had her locked away and forgotten her, or pushed for the harshest punishment to the crime there could be.</p><p>In that sense, the fact that she was his sister meant little to him, he could objectively look at her crimes and say she deserved punishment for them. Being locked away forever, Leena had said to him, was punishment, just like the prisons were for other criminals. There was only an added layer of security added here, him coming ever two weeks to play the violin either to Eurus or with Eurus, to 'reward her' and give her a 'treat' for good behavior. It would never lessen her sentence, but, hopefully, it would keep her content enough not to lash out or plot again.</p><p>Mycroft, in his typical way, had warned his parents that, if he caught wind of Eurus speaking to anyone beyond himself, Sherlock, or Leena, for he deemed them the most capable to handle her, he would resort to extreme measures to keep her silenced, not about to risk her taking over the prison again. For next time it would undoubtedly be worse.</p><p>They hadn't agreed with Mycroft's threat, but they also hadn't spoken to his parents about what exactly he meant in it. Let them think he meant gagging her indefinitely, putting some sort of contraption over her mouth so she couldn't speak. They had the gnawing suspicion that Mycroft was dead serious when he said he'd silence her, though he'd never kill her. One could not talk without tongue or vocal cords, though they hoped it would never come to that. But Mycroft took his failings very much to heart and refused to allow himself to fail again, no matter the cost.</p><p>And so they went to Sherrinford, and Sherlock would play his violin. Sometimes Eurus would sit there, with her back to him or facing him, and just listen. Other times, more and more recently, she would pick up her own violin and join him in a duet. Sometimes his parents would be there with Mycroft, though he had limited them to once every 3 months and only with his accompaniment, for their own safety.</p><p>In between those visits, they had worked tirelessly to repair and rebuild 221B. With Mycroft's assistance, because it was his fault Eurus got out and it was HIS grenades she'd used, he'd funded the endeavor. Mary and John came round whenever they could to help them sort through the rubbish and salvage what they could. It was mostly the sitting room and some of the kitchen that took the worst of it.</p><p>Leena had been a bit tearful when they saw that some of the nursery had been damaged as well, the door had blown in from the blast and crashed into the changing table and rocking chair they'd had set up. Nothing devastating, but still upsetting to see the room for their child broken in any way, shape, or form. Mary had fallen silent when she saw it, the reality of the situation hitting her at the sight. When they had told her about what happened, it was treated like a case for John to blog about, none of them wanted to put much thought on just how traumatic it had been or how close they really came to dying at various points. It had the added result of Mary feeling like she should have been there and that Harriet would have been fine with the two children for a few days…</p><p>Seeing the nursery had set her priorities back to rights. She had actually thanked them for sending her away with the children, because imagining if Liberty had been in that room, or if Leena had been feeding her at the rocking chair when it all happened? Mary had actually broken down in tears, because it could have happened at their home, too. Eurus could have targeted her and Hamish if she'd wanted, turn Sherlock's best friend against him or something. She'd said they were right to make that call to get the children away and she was glad they trusted her to do it.</p><p>Leena got the feeling Mary was a bit less pleased to be there sorting through so much rubbish, it was exhausting work and they'd had to buy a new pen for the children and set it up in the nursery to keep them away from anything dangerous and all the dust everywhere. Trying to clean house with two children to watch out for was complicated. But they'd managed it, and soon enough the flat looked just as it had. John had even gone so far as to paint the yellow smiley face back on the wall for Sherlock to shoot just to make it feel like home again.</p><p>Mrs. Hudson had been very pleased to see her property restored.</p><p>Which was why it was such a happy affair when they'd been given the all clear that everything was finished and right once more. They'd invited everyone over as a sort of 'house warming' though it really was more just John and Mary stopping round to see the finished result.</p><p>"It looks wonderful!" Mary beamed as she entered the room, Hamish in her arms, he was so big now!</p><p>"Mary," Leena smiled, moving to hug the woman and take Hamish from her, careful with her arm, it was growing stronger every day but she was always much more cautious when a child was in her arms, "And the handsome man!" Sherlock's eyes narrowed a moment at that, which had her rolling her eyes and scoffing, "Hamish, Sherwood, I was talking about Hamish."</p><p>He still hadn't gotten over her deciding John was 'handsome' in his own way.</p><p>"Where IS John though?" Leena turned to Mary.</p><p>"Just paying the cab," Mary shrugged, moving further into the room to where Sherlock was holding Liberty, snatching the girl's hand and pressing a kiss to it in greeting, before she put her hands on her hips and looked around, "You know, on second thought, it doesn't quite seem right, does it?" she frowned, slowly turning in a circle as she eyed the room, "Something's missing, isn't it?" she turned back to them.</p><p>Sherlock frowned and looked this way and that, mentally comparing the sight before him to the image of the flat in his mind palace, "It's the same."</p><p>"Yeah," Mary nodded, glancing at the door when they heard John coming up the stairs, "That's what I mean, there's something else that should be here though."</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"Surprise!" John called, pushing the door open with his foot.</p><p>"…what is that?" Sherlock blinked at the wriggling ting John was holding up in his arms.</p><p>"Oh, my god!" Leena nearly squealed, rushing over to the thing and laughing when it began to lick her nose, "It's a puppy!"</p><p>"No flies on Jackie," John laughed, reaching out to trade her the yapping dog for his son.</p><p>"Sherwood…" Leena beamed at him, carrying the tiny thing over to him and showing him it was a small black puppy, a bit shaggy of fur, with big blue eyes that reminded her of Sherlock's. A Berger Picard if she had to guess.</p><p>Sherlock looked down at the puppy and over to John.</p><p>"I know…" John began, before trying to find the right words, "I know Redbeard did exist, in the end. And you clearly loved him, very much," he shrugged, "I thought Liberty should have her own."</p><p>Sherlock let out a breath, a small smile on his face as he looked down at the dog, "What do you think?" he asked Leena, who was already cuddling the dog to her, clearly in love with it, Liberty was reaching for it, too, and the dog was licking her hand for her efforts.</p><p>She hummed and looked up at him, "Blackbeard."</p><p>"I love you," Sherlock grinned, leaning down to kiss her.</p><p>"No," Mary cut in, and they looked over to see her pointing at John, "We're not getting a dog."</p><p>John pouted, "It was nice while it lasted."</p><p>Mary rolled her eyes and shook her head fondly at him. Sherlock chuckled, moving to put Liberty in the pen, which was finally back in the sitting room, the windows now all bulletproof glass so there was no threat of something breaking through it without them having time to escape. John moved over with Hamish to set the boy down too as Leena turned to pour them all a glass of champagne to celebrate, handing the puppy to Sherlock to hold.</p><p>"Ok, ok," Mary turned, holding her glass up, "I have a toast," she offered, waiting till Sherlock and Leena nodded her on, not sure if they might want to speak first or at all or anything, "I'm so glad that I had the chance to know you," she looked around the room at them, their close brushes with death making her rethink when AJ had been after her, when Norbury had pulled that gun out, "That you know me, the real me," she smiled at John for that, "Like I've come to know the real yous. The not-so-sociopathic detective," she tipped her glass to Sherlock, the man laughing, sitting on his armchair with his arm around Leena, Blackbeard chewing the edge of his jacket lapel while it sat on his lap, "The French/American/British profiler," she laughed as Leena rolled her eyes, "Really, need to shorten that," she joked with the girl, "And the doctor who never came home from the war," she added, more seriously, to John, "You gave this assassin-turned-nurse a chance, you gave me your trust, and I swear I'm going to work every day to deserve it," that last part was to John though, the man smiling at her in return, before she took a breath and continued, "You're my family now," she looked around at them, finally able to let go of her past with AGRA, the family she hadn't been able to save, "All of us, legends in our own right, the adventures we've had," she chuckled, "And the adventures still to have," she lifted her glass, "Because right here, this is the last refuge for the desperate, the unloved, the persecuted. This is the final court of appeal for everyone. When life gets too strange, too impossible, too frightening, there is always one last hope. When all else fails, there are two men sitting, arguing in a scruffy flat," she tipped her glass to Sherlock and John, "And two women, standing behind them, rolling their eyes," she rolled her eyes for good measure as Leena lifted her glass and did the same, "All of us, like we've always been there and always will be," she held her glass up higher, "To the best men and wisest woman I have ever known…"</p><p>"And the most terrifying assassin!" Leena called out, making Mary smile at being included.</p><p>"To us," she nodded, "The Baker Street Bunch…"</p><p>"Really, Mary?" John laughed at that.</p><p>"Could be better," Sherlock agreed with a smile.</p><p>"Oh, you know what I mean," Mary huffed a laugh of her own, "To us, and the mysteries to come."</p><p>The others raised their glasses in toast, Leena leaning against Sherlock as they took sips of their drink, content.</p><p>Yes, to them, and the adventure still to come.</p><p>The End<br/>(Tentatively, see A/N below)</p><hr/><p>
  
</p><hr/><p>A/N: Putting it here, yet again, because it is long and involves a lot about this story and the show and why it's technically 'the end':</p><p>Well, not REALLY the end, I don't think? Does anyone know if we're getting a Series 5? I keep hearing 'it might happen, it'll happen' but nothing concrete about it <em>actually</em> happening. So, for now, this series is going to be deemed (<em>technically)</em> complete. IF a Series 5 happens, there WILL be another story, I have quite a few 'Holmes' related titles in mind but I'd need to have a better idea of what that series would be involving before I can pick just the right one ;) So until it's officially confirmed, Leena's story is complete :')</p><p>On other notes, lots to say! (Lol, I feel like I always end up with lots to say)</p><p>
  <strong>Leena's profiling:</strong>
</p><p>I hope Leena didn't come across as too know-it-all when it comes to Eurus or even the girl on the plane. With how often the BAU would travel by plane, I feel like Leena would be well versed in them, especially with how she would travel from the UK to America by plane, she would know that the door to the cockpit would NOT be open, even with them asleep and that would make her very suspicious and more ready to notice other little inconsistencies. I really tried to look into how her training, her education, her experience, and her background as a profiler helps her anticipate what Eurus might do or WHY she might do it. Sherlock is incredible at assessing crime scenes and working out the victims, but Leena's focus has always been the criminal and getting inside their head. This is what she's paid to do, it's just that this is more personal for her this time around :( She knows Eurus wants to inflict the most amount of pain she can without physically harming them (because that has its time and place) so she can guess a way to do it would be to force them to kill to save someone and then have them unable to save that person no matter how hard they tried, she can guess that such an intent focus on one of the brothers could me it's really the other two (or all of them) who are in danger because it's again giving them hope to save two this time only to take it away.</p><p>There were some areas where she wasn't able to fully guess what Eurus would do until it was happening, like when she got trapped in the hall. She's had a suspicion, since Eurus told Sherlock to keep the gun with its single bullet, that it meant at least one of them would likely die before Sherlock would need to use the bullet. She just didn't know it would be her in the next attempt or how that attempt would go.</p><p>I hope it made sense, the removal of Molly's scene from the chapter and the change to Leena being in danger. Molly doesn't have the same bond to Sherlock as in the show due to Leena being there, her death wouldn't affect Sherlock as much as Leena's would, so I couldn't see Eurus doing that to Molly when she has Leena right there to toy with :( I was really looking forward to Leena trying to add in her own version of the code she and Sherlock used, the one he left her a message with at the end of Series 2 ;) Even then, though, she wasn't 100 percent sure she was right about where Eurus might have hidden the remote to open the door, so she had to give Sherlock that message first, incase she was wrong, incase she died, she needed him to know how to get closer to Eurus if she wasn't there to help :( Luckily she was right :)</p><p>I wanted to sort of add that parallel in with Eurus and Mycroft, both of them thinking they're so clever when, if someone just understands them psychologically, they're sort of predictable to an extent ;) For Mycroft it's a bit more because Leena has the added benefit of having grown up around him and having heard of other things from Sherlock about him, she doesn't have that with Eurus. To me, timeline-wise, I sort of see the events with Eurus and Redbeard happening and then, a few months after she's taken away from the family and Sherlock forgets her, Leena moves over from France. I don't see Sherlock's parents ever bringing up Eurus after she 'died' and Sherlock forgot her, both out of the pain they had to be feeling and for Sherlock's benefit, so I couldn't see them ever telling her about the daughter they lost, more just seeing Leena as a daughter-figure, what their little girl maybe could have been one day. Mycroft went to too much trouble to ever slip and let Sherlock know about Eurus, so he'd have kept that from Leena too, for the reason he states, she would have told Sherlock :(</p><p>
  <strong>Sherlock and Eurus:</strong>
</p><p>As for Sherlock, how he handles Eurus. I was torn, watching the episode, with what we see of Sherlock and Eurus, mostly near the end of the problem. We don't know his mind or his motivations, so we can only really go on what we see and how we interpret the scene. To me, it read as a sort of genuine brother trying to calm down his little sister and not really knowing how to do it. But even then, there felt like there was a subtle layer of tension to it, to me, like he was being very careful to calm Eurus and not set her off. Again, could have been the brother-sister thing, or it could have been a 'my friend's life depends on me getting her to stop' sort of thing :/</p><p>In this chapter, I wanted to look more into Sherlock's head for WHY he says what he does and acts like he does where Eurus is concerned. Yes, she is his sister, and on some level he cares. But he's also had a very large shock, a very traumatic revelation, he's found out that this woman, his sister, murdered his best friend <em>as a child</em>, and his wife and his best friend are in danger of dying at her hands again. That isn't something he's going to get over quickly, that's not something he's going to be able to process fully, or ever forgive. Looking more into his mind, I felt like he would see Eurus breaking down and go the route of more 'how do I really talk her down and save the others.' He would say what he needs to say, do what he needs to do, to get her to stop what she's doing and free his wife and friend.</p><p>He's essentially manipulating her, I know :( Desperate times and all that :(</p><p>Over time, I think it would be possible for him to one day move past what she'd done to Victor and tried to do to Leena and John, but it won't happen within minutes. And I think there will be times where he'll wonder what Eurus would have become if Mycroft had gone to the ends of the earth to get Eurus help instead of locking her away. Part of it will be guilt, that he forgot her, that she became this, that he didn't spend enough time with her. Another part will be looking at her and seeing the woman who tried to kill the mother of his child :( It will take time.</p><p>
  <strong>Eurus then and Eurus now:</strong>
</p><p>Leena touched on that a bit, with her thoughts and remarks to Mycroft, she's very aware that not everyone who endures psychopathy becomes criminal. Some can live average lives, perhaps even learn to act the part so others might not notice. Eurus was brilliant, and with the right help and guidance, she could have learned that too. To her, when Eurus 'wanted Sherlock dead' as a child, it COULD have been her not knowing how to express her frustrations with Sherlock spending so much time with Victor, feeling like 'well if he doesn't want to spend time with me, he shouldn't spend time with anyone' sort of thing. And maybe if someone took the time to understand her, she could have learned the concept or sharing, that Sherlock would be more willing to be nice to her if she was nice to Victor and so on. She's very aware that, NOW, Eurus is too developed, has suffered too long in isolation and without human interaction, to be fully rehabilitated or worked with. It would take a far longer time to get through to her and help her adjust and adapt than it would as a child, and Mycroft is not likely to allow anything of the sort :( Leena will never forget the threat Eurus is now, but she knows psychologically it could have been different :(</p><p>
  <strong>Additional plans for Leena:</strong>
</p><p>On that note...I'm sure some of you are aware I have an AU planned for a 'what if' Sherlock and Leena met as adults during a Study in Pink and not as children...</p><p>...I may possibly have another AU in mind for Leena also, inspired by THIS chapter :D</p><p>WHAT IF, as Sherlock wondered here, Eurus <em>was</em> patient and <em>didn't</em> go after Victor. I imagine that Eurus being taken away and Leena arriving were quite close between, perhaps as much as 6 months apart. So what if Eurus was patient and Leena arrived WHILE Victor was still alive. What if Leena became <em>Eurus's best friend</em> instead of Sherlock's. How would Eurus be if she'd had someone, had that best friend, to help guide her. We saw Sherlock's sociopathic tendencies start to sort of fade away with Leena around, what would happen to Eurus if she had that connection and attention and companionship from someone? What would she be like if she had someone who 'wanted to play with her' and maybe could explain to her how some things were acceptable and others not? What would Sherlock be like if Victor never died? Would they still get together in the end? (I think you know the answer to that last question ;) ;))</p><p>A teaser, I'm sort of picturing Victor confronting Eurus and going 'Look, I don't like you, you don't like me, but I will kill either your best friend or my best friend if they don't just kiss already, you in?' lol :)</p><p>
  <strong>Future of Leena:</strong>
</p><p>We're getting a Leena AU! :D</p><p>Since this series is <em>technically</em> complete, I feel safe moving into AU territory for Leena and working on that so we can at least get a bit of Sherlock as the year goes on :) The AU would be the one where, instead of meeting Leena as a child, Sherlock meets her as an adult during A Study in Pink ;) BUT it will ONLY be posted on FF.net so check in for it to pop up...literally sometime this week ;)</p><p>
  <strong>End notes:</strong>
</p><p>And, just to end...I really have to say thank you guys SO much! Really, I give each and every reader/reviewer/favoriter/follower/ko-fi giver/anythinger a virtual hug because you guys are amazing :) I write for all of you guys and I really hope that you're enjoying Leena :) I'll do my very best to keep it up in the future, because you guys most definitely deserve it. I love you all :')</p>
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